GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 M275X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be a bit (about 5%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 M275X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (13%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one 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 it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.