GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which has clock speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a lot (more or less 105%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19400 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 135%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (135%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.