GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 430 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 will be quite a bit (approximately 133%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (133%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 is a small bit (more or less 17%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant 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.