Radeon HD 4350 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4350		22 Watts
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4550 256MB should be 60% faster than the Radeon HD 4350 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4350		8000 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB is a small bit (approximately 4%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4350. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		4600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB should be a small bit (about 4%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4350, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		2300 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 100 (4%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of 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 faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.