Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, 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

In theory, the Radeon HD 7850 is 1100% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be much (more or less 1047%) more effective at 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 superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of 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.