GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which features a clock frequency of 575 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is 71% faster than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 40896 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (approximately 57%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (57%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high 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 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (135%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface 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 ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

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