GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a clock speed of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features 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 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 219 Watts (876%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179584 (1403%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (more or less 929%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44608 (929%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34656 (1444%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.