GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600(320x5) Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5870, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (41%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be quite a bit (approximately 118%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (31%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.