GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications 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 features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5870 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is a lot (approximately 118%) better 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 running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is the winner, and very much so. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.