GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5550, which has a clock speed of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 400 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 5550 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 will be much (approximately 27%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5550 is superior to the GeForce GT 430, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (57%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.