GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which has a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up 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 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (500%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115328 (901%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is a lot (more or less 845%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40560 (845%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.