GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 470, which has GPU core speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 448 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
GeForce GTX 460		2557 points
	Difference: 380 (15%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 470 is 55% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 47520 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is a bit (approximately 11%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8080 (50%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the 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 the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.