GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 420, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 48 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 230 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 230 is quite a bit (approximately 57%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 230 is a lot (approximately 57%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (57%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends 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 max fill rate.