GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 470, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 837 MHz on this model. It features 448 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 470 will be 16% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 18720 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a little bit (more or less 11%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2680 (12%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. 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 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.