Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M380, which comes with core clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M380 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be quite a bit (more or less 733%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (733%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (567%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 processed in a second.

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