Radeon HD 5550 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270, which comes with GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270 will be 1300% quicker than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (1300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be a lot (approximately 718%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63200 (718%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is superior to the Radeon HD 5550, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.