Radeon HD 4730 vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. 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
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4730 should be much (about 22%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (22%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 64%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4730, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (64%)

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 is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.