GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (500%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (750%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (approximately 658%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31600 (658%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be a lot (about 767%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (767%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.