GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 600 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (900%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 1286% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 164608 (1286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (approximately 775%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37200 (775%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31200 (1300%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 ability to get to the maximum fill rate.