GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970 should be 678% quicker than the GeForce GT 420 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 195200 (678%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be much (about 1850%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 103600 (1850%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (about 2300%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 64400 (2300%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, 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, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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