GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 240, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 730 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320 SPUs along with 20 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (117%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 230 should be 33% quicker than the Radeon R7 240 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 will be quite a bit (about 66%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 will be quite a bit (approximately 33%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 230, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1440 (33%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.