GeForce GT 430 1GB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 401% faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115392 (401%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (about 600%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67200 (600%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (approximately 740%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20720 (740%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.