GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which has a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should be 125% quicker than the GeForce 8500 GT overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB is much (about 211%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (211%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB is much (approximately 56%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1000 (56%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.