Compare any two graphics cards:

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB has a GPU core speed of 625 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 993 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 550, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 512 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be 11% quicker than the Radeon RX 550 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 12416 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 42%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon RX 550. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (14%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon RX 550

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model	Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB	Radeon RX 550
Manufacturer	AMD	AMD
Year	Nov 7, 2008	April 2017
Code Name	R700	Polaris 12
Memory	1024 MB (x2)	2048 MB
Core Speed	625 MHz (x2)	1100 MHz
Memory Speed	1986 MHz (x2)	7000 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	250 watts	50 watts
Bandwidth	127104 MB/sec	114688 MB/sec
Texel Rate	50000 Mtexels/sec	35200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	20000 Mpixels/sec	17600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	800(160x5) (x2)	512
Texture Mapping Units	40 (x2)	32
Render Output Units	16 (x2)	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	256-bit (x2)	128-bit
Fab Process	55 nm	14 nm
Transistors	956 million	2200 million
Bus	PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)	PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10.1	DirectX 12.0
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices