GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (776%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 570 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 139200 (1088%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be a lot (about 815%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39120 (815%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26880 (1120%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.