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GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB has a clock frequency of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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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 bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 26%) faster with regards to AF 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, and very much so. (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

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GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Amazon.com

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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 4870 1GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2010 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name GF104 RV770 XT
Memory 1024 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 675 MHz 750 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 3600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 160 watts 150 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 37800 Mtexels/sec 30000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 21600 Mpixels/sec 12000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 336 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 56 40
Render Output Units 32 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1950 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 1GB

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.

Comments

One Response to “GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB”
Mike says:

When will we see the addition of the new AMD/Radeon 7000 series added as well as the new NVidia 600 series?

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