GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which features GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a lot (approximately 33%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a lot (more or less 33%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (33%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 reach the max fill rate.