GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, which comes with core clock speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 216 SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 121 Watts (242%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83088 (289%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm will be quite a bit (about 641%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35872 (641%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13328 (476%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.