GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be 144% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 141504 (144%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB is much (more or less 211%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60800 (211%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be a bit (more or less 19%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (19%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.