GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 560

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 560, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 810 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1001 MHz on this model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99328 (345%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be quite a bit (about 710%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39760 (710%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23120 (826%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.