GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which has a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, 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 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 will be a little bit (more or less 5%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 512 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be quite a bit (more or less 282%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7888 (282%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends 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 max fill rate.