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GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 420 features a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 48 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3470 512MB should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB 30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420 28800 MB/sec
Difference: 1600 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be quite a bit (more or less 75%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 420 5600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB 3200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 2400 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3470 512MB should be just a bit (about 14%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 420, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB 3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420 2800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 400 (14%)

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

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GT 420 Radeon HD 3470 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 2008
Code Name GF108 RV620 PRO
Memory 2048 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 700 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1900 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 28800 MB/sec 30400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 5600 Mtexels/sec 3200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2800 Mpixels/sec 3200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 48 40(8x5)
Texture Mapping Units 8 4
Render Output Units 4 4
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 585 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

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

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

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

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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