GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be 44% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (44%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be a little bit (approximately 6%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is superior to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (1%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.