GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should theoretically be just a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be a small bit (about 4%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE should be a lot (about 73%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (73%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.