GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (460%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 131392 (1027%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (more or less 1533%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73600 (1533%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (about 880%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21120 (880%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.