GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon R9 M275X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be a little bit (approximately 5%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 M275X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is a little bit (approximately 13%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon R9 M275X, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (13%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.