GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be much (about 26%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 80%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (80%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.