GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be 325% faster than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be a lot (more or less 100%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have exactly the same pixel rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at full screen anti-aliasing, and be capable of handling the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. 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 better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one 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 this number, the better the 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 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 number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.