GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		250 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is 10% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 11904 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 32%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12200 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 X2 512MB		20000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (8%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.