GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (83%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be much faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 34752 (121%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is much (about 123%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13800 (123%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be quite a bit (about 257%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 430, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (257%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.