GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
	Difference: 45248 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be much (more or less 25%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6200 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (108%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 in one second.

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