GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 550, which features a core clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is made up of 512 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 147 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon RX 550 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 13312 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (approximately 118%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon RX 550. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (118%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (9%)

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

Specifications

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

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.