GeForce GT 430 vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (144%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be much (approximately 322%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36032 (322%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be much (approximately 322%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 430, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9008 (322%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

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