GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 240, which comes with a clock frequency of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 will be much (about 30%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3400 (30%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 is much (more or less 109%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3040 (109%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out 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 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 graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.