GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 4790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4790, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4790 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be much (approximately 92%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX should be quite a bit (about 44%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4790, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (44%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.