GeForce GT 430 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 280, which comes with a clock speed of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1107 MHz. It also features a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 176 Watts (293%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 112896 (392%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (more or less 330%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36960 (330%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (approximately 588%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16464 (588%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.