GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is a little bit (more or less 13%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (13%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.