Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB 150 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB 160 Watts
Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a lot (more or less 26%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB 37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 30000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 7800 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be much (approximately 80%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB 21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB 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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 2GB

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.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model GeForce GTX 460 2GB Radeon HD 4870 2GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2010 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name GF104 RV770 XT
Memory 2048 MB 2048 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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 2GB

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

Be the first to leave a comment!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield