GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 295X2, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1018 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 2816 SPUs along with 176 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 295X2		500 Watts
	Difference: 340 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 295X2 will be 456% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 524800 (456%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be much (about 848%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 320536 (848%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 295X2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 108704 (503%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.