GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which comes with GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (more or less 59%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22200 (59%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (48%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.