GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4730, which comes with a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4730 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a lot (more or less 69%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15400 (69%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (286%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.