GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features core speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 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 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (176%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is quite a bit (more or less 267%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (267%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 340 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (83%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.