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

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. ATi has clocked the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

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 will be 350% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, due to its higher data rate. (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 much (about 113%) better at anisotropic 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 quite a bit (more or less 113%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and also should be capable of handling 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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.