GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5850 should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be much (more or less 38%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (38%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be just a bit (about 7%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (7%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 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 maximum fill rate.