GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of 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 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (460%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be much (more or less 1533%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, by far. (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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.