Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which features a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (600%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5830, in theory, should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be a lot (about 833%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (833%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be much (about 433%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (433%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.