GeForce GT 430 1GB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 480, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 924 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 190 Watts (317%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 148608 (516%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a lot (about 275%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30800 (275%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (about 1100%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30800 (1100%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.