GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (688%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (more or less 1500%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72000 (1500%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 700%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (700%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 processed per second.

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