GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4730, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses 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 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4730 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4730 should be quite a bit (approximately 300%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (300%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4730 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (100%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.