GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 4770

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4770, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4770		80 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4770 should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		51200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is a lot (approximately 40%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4770. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4770		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9600 (40%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4770 should be quite a bit (approximately 25%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.