GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 56000 (184%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be quite a bit (about 1081%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34600 (1081%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13000 (406%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.