GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be a lot (approximately 26%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (35%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends 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.