GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should in theory be much better than the GeForce GT 430 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be just a bit (more or less 5%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 512 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 256MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.