GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is much (about 65%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is just a bit (more or less 15%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (15%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.