GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 902 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28928 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be quite a bit (about 347%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19456 (347%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be much (more or less 347%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 420, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9728 (347%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.