GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a speed of 800 MHz on this card. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 118 Watts (472%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 50560 (395%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be a lot (approximately 413%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19824 (413%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7860 (328%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.