GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6850, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be just a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (18%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is just a bit (approximately 19%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (19%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.