GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (500%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115328 (901%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be a lot (more or less 845%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40560 (845%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23520 (980%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.