GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 is 184% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 56000 (184%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is a lot (approximately 1081%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34600 (1081%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13000 (406%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.