GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has a clock speed of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (208%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 XT will be 567% quicker than the GeForce GT 430 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163200 (567%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is a lot (approximately 693%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 77600 (693%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be quite a bit (about 957%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26800 (957%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.