Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M380, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M380 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be a lot (more or less 733%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35200 (733%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.