GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be 300% faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is quite a bit (about 168%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (168%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.