GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 980, which comes with a clock speed of 1126 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (230%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 195200 (678%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (about 2474%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 138528 (2474%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 69264 (2474%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.