GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4730, which has core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 50%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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 is quite a bit (about 71%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4730, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a 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 memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.