GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 (OEM) in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is a small bit (more or less 2%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.