GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 575 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is much (more or less 34%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6224 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1060 (12%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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 max fill rate.