GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 470, which has clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 470 should be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 18720 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a bit (more or less 11%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2680 (12%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.