GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this particular card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit (approximately 112%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42200 (112%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be much (about 48%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (48%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.