GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. 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)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 119808 (208%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (more or less 128%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (128%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (265%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can 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 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.