GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 4650 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 700 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 420 should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4650 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4650 1GB		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 243%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (243%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4650 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 1GB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (71%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 get to the max fill rate.