GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (120%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 950M should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is much (more or less 662%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31760 (662%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12224 (509%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.