GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5830 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (344%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is quite a bit (more or less 700%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39200 (700%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is superior to the GeForce GT 420, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (357%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 in one second.

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