Radeon HD 4350 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4350		22 Watts
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4550 256MB will be 60% faster than the Radeon HD 4350 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4350		8000 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB should be a bit (more or less 4%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4350. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		4600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4550 256MB is superior to the Radeon HD 4350, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		2300 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 100 (4%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 video card will be at 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.