GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4790, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should in theory be a little bit faster 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 should be a lot (approximately 63%) faster with regards to AF 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 is quite a bit (approximately 117%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4790, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.