GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB is much (approximately 168%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (168%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 329%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9200 (329%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.