GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 575 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 102 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 will be 122% quicker than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 317%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58400 (317%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 109%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (109%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel 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 reach the max fill rate.