GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4730, which has a core clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be 10% quicker than the Radeon HD 4730 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5760 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is a little bit (about 10%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2224 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be quite a bit (about 83%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4730, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4660 (83%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.