Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280, which features a core clock speed of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (900%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 227200 (1775%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (approximately 2077%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 99696 (2077%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27456 (1144%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed per second. This is worked out 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.