GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 102 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (more or less 317%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58400 (317%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (more or less 109%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (109%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 are applied per second. This number is calculated 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 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.