Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which has a clock speed of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (420%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 7850 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is a lot (more or less 1047%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50240 (1047%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25120 (1047%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends 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.