GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (217%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (333%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB will be much (about 257%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28800 (257%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4890 2GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (471%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.