Radeon HD 4670 1GB vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5550, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 400 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4670 1GB will be 175% quicker than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		35200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (175%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB should be a lot (more or less 173%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		24000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (173%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB will be much (more or less 36%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 5550, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		6000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (36%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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