GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be much (approximately 26%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is much (more or less 80%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (80%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.