GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4770

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4770, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4770		80 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should in theory be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4770 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4770		51200 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be much (about 40%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4770. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4770		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (40%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4770 is quite a bit (more or less 25%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (25%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.