GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is 6% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be just a bit (approximately 4%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (73%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.