Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which features a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M275X should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X will be quite a bit (approximately 650%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31200 (650%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M275X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (500%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.