Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB features a GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 112 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which has GPU clock speed of 575 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is much (approximately 83%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (83%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (4%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model	GeForce 9800 GT 512MB	Radeon HD 4830 1GB
Manufacturer	nVidia	AMD
Year	July 2008	Oct 21, 2008
Code Name	G92a/b	RV770 LE
Memory	512 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	600 MHz	575 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	105 watts	95 watts
Bandwidth	57600 MB/sec	57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate	33600 Mtexels/sec	18400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	9600 Mpixels/sec	9200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	112	640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units	56	32
Render Output Units	16	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR4
Bus Width	256-bit	256-bit
Fab Process	65/55 nm	55 nm
Transistors	754 million	956 million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices