GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is a lot (approximately 250%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB will be a little bit (more or less 14%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.