Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (240%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7790 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 will be quite a bit (about 1067%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51200 (1067%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 should be much (approximately 567%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (567%)

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 within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.