Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2560 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 250 Watts (1000%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 390 8G should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 371200 (2900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G will be quite a bit (approximately 3233%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 155200 (3233%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390 8G is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 61600 (2567%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.