GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5830, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5830 should be 11% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 will be a bit (approximately 19%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7000 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is superior to the Radeon HD 5830, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (69%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.