Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which features GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 126 Watts (504%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 is 950% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (950%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be much (more or less 950%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45600 (950%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.