GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 575 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 149 Watts (157%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (approximately 169%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31008 (169%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27856 (303%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.