GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 250%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 256MB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.