GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4790, which makes use of a 55 nm design. ATi has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 4790 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a lot (more or less 97%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18600 (97%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be much (more or less 125%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4790, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (125%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.