GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with core speeds of 941 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1344 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB, in theory, should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be quite a bit (more or less 179%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67592 (179%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's 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 better 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 processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.