GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4770, which features a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up 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 4770		80 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 117 Watts (146%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 is 150% quicker than the Radeon HD 4770 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4770		51200 MB/sec
	Difference: 76800 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 220%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4770. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4770		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52800 (220%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 60%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4770, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4770		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (60%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.