GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 975 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB is 27% quicker than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 26304 (27%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB will be much (more or less 39%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (39%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (35%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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