GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be much (more or less 267%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (267%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be much (approximately 83%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (83%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.