GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has a clock speed of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 837 MHz. It also uses a 320-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 25120 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a bit (more or less 9%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2792 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a little bit (about 17%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3480 (17%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.