Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 7990

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7990, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 950 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 7990		375 Watts
	Difference: 350 Watts (1400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7990 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		576000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 563200 (4400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7990 is much (about 4967%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		243200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 238400 (4967%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7990 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7990		60800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 58400 (2433%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.