GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which has a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5830 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is a lot (more or less 33%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (33%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.