GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (24%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (approximately 62%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (about 38%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (38%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.