GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5770, which has clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		36 FPS
Radeon HD 5770		30 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (20%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		86 FPS
Radeon HD 5770		70 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (23%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		106 FPS
Radeon HD 5770		87 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (22%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		77 FPS
Radeon HD 5770		62 FPS
	Difference: 15 FPS (24%)

---

GeForce GTX 460 1GB wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB wins overall, by 56 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		305 FPS
Radeon HD 5770		249 FPS
	Difference: 56 FPS (22%)

---

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5770 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is just a bit (approximately 11%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a lot (approximately 59%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5770, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (59%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.