GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be a bit (approximately 11%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be quite a bit (about 343%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 maximum fill rate.