GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7790, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7790 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 will be a lot (about 67%) better at AF than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (67%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (67%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.