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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be 395% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (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 is quite a bit (more or less 413%) faster with regards to 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 high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is the winner, and very much so. (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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.