GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has a clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much (about 92%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28800 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is just a bit (more or less 15%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (15%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many 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.