GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which comes with clock speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is a bit (more or less 13%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (13%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.