Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5830, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (600%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5830 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 will be quite a bit (more or less 833%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (833%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.