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GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 420 features core 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 3870 X2 512MB, which has core clock speeds of 825 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be 300% faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420 28800 MB/sec
Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be much (about 371%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420 5600 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 20800 (371%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be much (more or less 843%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420 2800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 23600 (843%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

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 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name GF108 R680
Memory 2048 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 700 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 28800 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 5600 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2800 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 48 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 8 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 4 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 585 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

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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