GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 975 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB should in theory perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 28%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (28%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is quite a bit (more or less 30%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (30%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at 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 video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.