Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1120 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units 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 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (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 a lot (approximately 950%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

The Radeon HD 6870 will be much (approximately 1100%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels 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 Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.