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GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

The GeForce GT 420 has core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420 50 Watts
Radeon HD 6870 151 Watts
Difference: 101 Watts (202%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420 28800 MB/sec
Difference: 105600 (367%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (more or less 800%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420 5600 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 44800 (800%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870 28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420 2800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 26000 (929%)

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

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GT 420 Radeon HD 6870
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 October 2010
Code Name GF108 Barts XT
Memory 2048 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 700 MHz 900 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 4200 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 151 watts
Bandwidth 28800 MB/sec 134400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 5600 Mtexels/sec 50400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2800 Mpixels/sec 28800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 48 1120
Texture Mapping Units 8 56
Render Output Units 4 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 40 nm
Transistors 585 million 1700 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per 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 worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6870

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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