GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (324%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 450 should be 351% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44928 (351%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be a lot (more or less 422%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20256 (422%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 should be quite a bit (approximately 422%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10128 (422%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 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 max fill rate.