GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be a lot (approximately 105%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19400 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is much (about 135%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (135%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.