GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7770 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is just a bit (about 19%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is much (about 67%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (67%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 max fill rate.