GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 240, which features a clock frequency of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 is quite a bit (more or less 30%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3400 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 should be a lot (approximately 109%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3040 (109%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount 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 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.