GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this particular card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) will be much (more or less 250%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 256MB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few 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.