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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. ATi has set the core speed at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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 8800 GTS (G92)		42 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (19%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		36 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		36 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

Fallout 3

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

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		59 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		49 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (20%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		45 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		42 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (7%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		40 FPS
	Difference: 8 FPS (20%)

Left4Dead

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

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		51 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		51 FPS
	Difference: 0 FPS (0%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		17 FPS
	Difference: 5 FPS (29%)

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 8800 GTS (G92)		35 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		24 FPS
	Difference: 11 FPS (46%)

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GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) wins overall, by 3 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 8800 GTS (G92)		325 FPS
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		322 FPS
	Difference: 3 FPS (1%)

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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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (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) will be a lot (more or less 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

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is a small bit (more or less 13%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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 max fill rate.