GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 575 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 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)

Radeon HD 4830 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB should be a lot (about 83%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (83%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce 8800 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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.