GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 470, which has a core clock speed of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 837 MHz. It also uses a 320-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 380 (15%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 470 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 47520 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be a small bit (more or less 11%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be much (more or less 50%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8080 (50%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.