GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 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 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 1GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (about 133%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (133%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 430 1GB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.