Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5550, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a speed of 400 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 680 should be 1402% faster than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is a lot (more or less 1363%) faster with regards to AF 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 is much (approximately 632%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 5550, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of 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 its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a 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 - also called 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.