GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 420 should theoretically be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be a little bit (approximately 17%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be a little bit (more or less 17%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (17%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount 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 better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.