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GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 420 has clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420 50 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be 100% quicker than the GeForce GT 420 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420 28800 MB/sec
Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be a lot (about 121%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420 5600 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 6800 (121%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is superior to the GeForce GT 420, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420 2800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9600 (343%)

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 3870 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 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name GF108 RV670 XT
Memory 2048 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 700 MHz 775 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts 106 watts
Bandwidth 28800 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 5600 Mtexels/sec 12400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2800 Mpixels/sec 12400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 48 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 8 16
Render Output Units 4 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 585 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 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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