GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 941 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be much (about 179%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67592 (179%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 984 (5%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.