GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5850, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (152%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5850 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (344%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (approximately 366%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41000 (366%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20400 (729%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.