GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which has a clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (236%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is 25% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 should be quite a bit (approximately 450%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (450%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is quite a bit (more or less 175%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4200 (175%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that 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 ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.