GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (460%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 is 1027% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 131392 (1027%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be quite a bit (approximately 1533%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73600 (1533%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21120 (880%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.