GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has core clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 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 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be a little bit (more or less 11%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is superior to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.