GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4730, which has GPU core speed of 700 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640(128x5) Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be a lot (approximately 50%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB will be a lot (more or less 71%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4730, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (71%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few 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.