GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which has GPU core speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (280%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 380 4G will be 533% faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (533%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be much (more or less 1840%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 103040 (1840%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be quite a bit (about 1009%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28240 (1009%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.