GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which comes with GPU core speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 230		65 Watts
Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (192%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 380 4G will be 375% faster than the GeForce GT 230 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (375%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G is a lot (more or less 1135%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 99840 (1135%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 4G is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26640 (605%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. 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 faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.