GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs 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 runs at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB should be quite a bit (about 33%) better at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4550 256MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 600 (33%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of 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 speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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