GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 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 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (776%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be a lot superior to 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 is a lot (about 815%) faster with regards to AF 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 screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by far. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.