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GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 430 makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 96 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which has core clock speeds of 825 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 28800 MB/sec
Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 136%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 11200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 15200 (136%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the GeForce GT 430, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 2800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 23600 (843%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GT 430

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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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 430 Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year October 2010 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name GF108 R680
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 700 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 60 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 28800 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 11200 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2800 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 16 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 4 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 585 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 430

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 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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