GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB is just a bit (about 11%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (11%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (343%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.