GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has GPU core speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1344 Stream Processors, 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 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be 13% quicker than the GeForce GTX 870M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (more or less 238%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 74192 (238%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1784 (9%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.