GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 575 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB will be a lot (more or less 70%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB should be just a bit (more or less 13%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO 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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.