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GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 625 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB 160 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 250 Watts
Difference: 90 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 11904 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is a lot (about 32%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB 37800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 12200 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB 21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB 20000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1600 (8%)

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

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GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 460 1GB Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2010 Nov 7, 2008
Code Name GF104 R700
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 675 MHz 625 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 1986 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 160 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 127104 MB/sec
Texel Rate 37800 Mtexels/sec 50000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 21600 Mpixels/sec 20000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 336 800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 56 40 (x2)
Render Output Units 32 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1950 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must 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, HDR 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 calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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