GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which comes with a core clock speed of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 190 Watts (317%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (511%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (more or less 654%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73280 (654%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be quite a bit (about 906%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25360 (906%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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 max fill rate.