GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 280, which comes with core clock speeds of 602 MHz on the GPU, and 1107 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 186 Watts (372%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 112896 (392%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (approximately 760%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42560 (760%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (about 588%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16464 (588%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.