Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 260X, which has GPU clock speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1625 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (360%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 260X should be 713% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 91200 (713%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X will be much (about 1183%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56800 (1183%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (633%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.