GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs 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 as well as 8 TAUs 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 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 should be much (more or less 133%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (133%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 should be a little bit (about 17%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		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 past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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