Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1050 MHz on this specific card. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 126 Watts (504%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a lot (more or less 950%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45600 (950%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26400 (1100%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 max fill rate.