GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4790, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should theoretically be a little bit better than the Radeon HD 4790 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is a lot (about 63%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be quite a bit (more or less 117%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4790, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (117%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.