GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised 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 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (900%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (approximately 775%) better at 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

The GeForce GTX 480 will be much (more or less 1300%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.