Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5550, which comes with a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 5550 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179456 (1402%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be quite a bit (approximately 1363%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 119968 (1363%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be quite a bit (approximately 632%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5550, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27792 (632%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.