Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M230, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 780 MHz. The DDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 320 SPUs along with 20 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R5 M230 should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be quite a bit (approximately 225%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (225%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R5 M230 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 720 (30%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.