Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7770, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (220%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7770 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is much (more or less 733%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (733%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7770 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (567%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.