GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which comes with core speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB will be much (approximately 83%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (83%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is a bit (approximately 4%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.