GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which features a core clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is quite a bit (approximately 135%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51000 (135%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (37%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.