GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon R9 285

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 285, which comes with GPU core speed of 918 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 285		190 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 285 should be 53% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (53%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 will be quite a bit (approximately 172%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		102816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 65016 (172%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 will be quite a bit (approximately 36%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		29376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7776 (36%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.