GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 575 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		26 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		17 FPS
	Difference: 9 FPS (53%)

F.E.A.R. 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Unknown (Source)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		50 FPS
GeForce 9800 GTX+		48 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (4%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		40 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (11%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		67 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		49 FPS
	Difference: 18 FPS (37%)

Far Cry 2

Settings:	Very High Qualty
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-920,3 x 2 GB Ram,Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit SP1 (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		46 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		42 FPS
	Difference: 4 FPS (10%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		48 FPS
GeForce 9800 GTX+		46 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (4%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		57 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (12%)

Left4Dead 2

Settings:	Very High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		52 FPS
GeForce 9800 GTX+		50 FPS
	Difference: 2 FPS (4%)

Mass Effect 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	none
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		81 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		65 FPS
	Difference: 16 FPS (25%)

Supreme Commander 2

Settings:	High
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		40 FPS
GeForce 9800 GTX+		34 FPS
	Difference: 6 FPS (18%)

Tom Clancy's Endwar

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		22 FPS
GeForce 9800 GTX+		19 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (16%)

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		41 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		24 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (71%)

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GeForce 9800 GTX+ wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ wins overall, by 59 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

GeForce 9800 GTX+		555 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		496 FPS
	Difference: 59 FPS (12%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ should be much (more or less 157%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28832 (157%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be quite a bit (about 28%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2608 (28%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 maximum fill rate.