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

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

In theory, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should perform quite a bit faster 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 is a lot (more or less 267%) faster with regards to texture 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

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is the winner, by far. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.