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GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB has a GPU core speed of 513 MHz, and the 320 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 792 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also features 96 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 20 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5830 should be 102% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 64640 (102%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be much (more or less 82%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20176 (82%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2540 (25%)

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

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GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB	Radeon HD 5830
Manufacturer	nVidia	AMD
Year	Feb 2007	February 25, 2010
Code Name	G80	Cypress LE
Memory	320 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	513 MHz	800 MHz
Memory Speed	1584 MHz	4000 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	143 watts	175 watts
Bandwidth	63360 MB/sec	128000 MB/sec
Texel Rate	24624 Mtexels/sec	44800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	10260 Mpixels/sec	12800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	96	1120(224x5)
Texture Mapping Units	48	56
Render Output Units	20	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	320-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	90 nm	40 nm
Transistors	681 million	2154 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

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