GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which has a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

The Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be much 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 is 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 (more or less 38%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.