GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1120 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 91 Watts (152%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (367%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be a lot (approximately 350%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39200 (350%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26000 (929%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.