GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5550, which comes with a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 260 should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5550 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 99088 (774%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be much (approximately 319%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28064 (319%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 260 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11728 (267%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.