GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4790, which features a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4790 will be 19% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be much (more or less 97%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18600 (97%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is quite a bit (approximately 69%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4790, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6600 (69%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.