GeForce GT 430 1GB vs GeForce GT 640 DDR3

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 640 DDR3, which has clock speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1782 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 384 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		65 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28224 (98%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 640 DDR3 should be a lot (about 157%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (157%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (414%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.