GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M280X should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (206%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be a lot (about 350%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39200 (350%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (more or less 414%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (414%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.