GeForce GT 1030 vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this card. It features 288 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE will be 121% faster than the GeForce GT 1030 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 59648 (121%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be quite a bit (approximately 30%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9280 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 560 (3%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.