GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which comes with a clock frequency of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up 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 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is a lot (more or less 654%) faster with regards to 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is a better choice, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is 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 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.