GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 950 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 512MB should theoretically perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 will be a lot (more or less 250%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3470 512MB should be just a bit (more or less 14%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.