GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features a clock speed of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 560 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be quite a bit (about 845%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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 using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by far. (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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.