Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M385X, which features a clock speed of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M385X is 650% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be much (approximately 1183%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56800 (1183%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be quite a bit (more or less 633%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (633%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour 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 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.