GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be 100% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 205%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (205%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (more or less 74%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9200 (74%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.