GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which has core speeds of 840 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6790 is 17% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a bit (more or less 13%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 61%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6790, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8160 (61%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour 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 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.