GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5830 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (186%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is quite a bit (about 33%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be a lot (more or less 33%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (33%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.