GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications 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 memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (156%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 650 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 67200 (525%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is quite a bit (more or less 605%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29056 (605%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is quite a bit (approximately 605%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14528 (605%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen 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 better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.