GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has GPU core speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1344 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a lot (about 179%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67592 (179%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a bit (more or less 5%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 984 (5%)

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

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.