GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1425 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380X should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be much (more or less 2117%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 118560 (2117%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is much (about 1009%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its 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 core 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.