GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which has clock speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM. 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 GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 48 Watts (102%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4830 1GB is 157% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 35200 (157%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 113%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9760 (113%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 113%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.