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

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

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

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be just a bit (approximately 8%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.