GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270, which comes with core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1400 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270 will be 56% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (56%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be a lot (more or less 90%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34200 (90%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be much (approximately 33%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (33%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.