GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 33 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6850 should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a small bit (about 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 600 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (15%)

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 within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.