GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should in theory be much better than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is a lot (about 168%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (168%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 329%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9200 (329%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.