GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6790, which features a core clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 800 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be a small bit (more or less 8%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (more or less 55%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6790, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7360 (55%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.