GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 150% faster than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 86592 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a lot (about 326%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60000 (326%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14320 (156%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.