Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M230, which has GPU clock speed of 780 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R5 M230 is 25% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be much (more or less 225%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (225%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is a lot (about 30%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 720 (30%)

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 past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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