GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 550, which comes with clock speeds of 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 186 Watts (372%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 will be 24% quicker than the Radeon RX 550 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 27008 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is much (approximately 37%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon RX 550. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12960 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is a small bit (about 9%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon RX 550, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1664 (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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.