GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 96 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB is quite a bit (about 100%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel fill rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at anti-aliasing, and be capable of handling the same resolutions. (explain)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.