GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. 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 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should theoretically be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is a lot (about 126%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23200 (126%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (13%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.