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

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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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

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (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%) more effective 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 will be a lot (about 113%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.