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GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB has a core clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 336 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB 160 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 175 Watts
Difference: 15 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB 115200 MB/sec
Difference: 38400 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be much (approximately 112%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB 37800 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 42200 (112%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB 21600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10400 (48%)

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

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GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

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

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Model GeForce GTX 460 2GB Radeon HD 7870
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2010 March 2012
Code Name GF104 Pitcairn XT
Memory 2048 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 675 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 160 watts 175 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 37800 Mtexels/sec 80000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 21600 Mpixels/sec 32000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 336 1280
Texture Mapping Units 56 80
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 28 nm
Transistors 1950 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's 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 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7870

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.

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