GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4730, which comes with clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be much (more or less 50%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be a lot (approximately 71%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4730, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (71%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.