GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific card. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (83%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 390 8G should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275200 (253%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G will be much (about 413%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 128800 (413%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390 8G is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43200 (208%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.