GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 380X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1425 MHz on this particular model. 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 will be quite a bit (more or less 2117%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380X is superior to the GeForce GT 420, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics 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 core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.