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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 comes with core clock speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 575 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640(128x5) Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 47 Watts
Radeon HD 4830 512MB 95 Watts
Difference: 48 Watts (102%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be 350% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 12800 MB/sec
Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB will be quite a bit (about 113%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 18400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 9760 (113%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be a lot (more or less 113%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 9200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4880 (113%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Radeon HD 4830 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 Oct 21, 2008
Code Name G84 RV770 LE
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 575 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 18400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 9200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 55 nm
Transistors 289 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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