GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which features GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870 XT		6390 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 3833 (150%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is a lot (approximately 135%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be much (approximately 83%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13400 (83%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.