Radeon HD 5550 vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 480 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be 400% quicker than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be a lot (more or less 77%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (77%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (18%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.