GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 975 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, 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 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4890 2GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 26304 (27%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB is a lot (approximately 39%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit (more or less 35%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.