GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB will be much (about 123%) more effective at AF 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 is quite a bit (about 257%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 430, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.