GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5850, which has a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1440(288x5) Stream Processors, 72 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 is 11% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a lot (approximately 38%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.