GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4730, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4730 should in theory be just a bit superior to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4730 will be much (more or less 27%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4730 will be a lot (about 27%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (27%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.