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GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 8500 GT has a GPU core clock speed of 450 MHz, and the 512 MB of DDR2 memory runs at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 16 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB 25 Watts
GeForce 8500 GT 45 Watts
Difference: 20 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB is a lot (about 33%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB 4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT 3600 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 1200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB will be quite a bit (more or less 33%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB 2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT 1800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 600 (33%)

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

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GeForce 8500 GT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8500 GT Radeon HD 4550 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 Sep 30, 2008
Code Name G86 RV710
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 450 MHz 600 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 1600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 45 watts 25 watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 3600 Mtexels/sec 4800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 1800 Mpixels/sec 2400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 16 80(16x5)
Texture Mapping Units 8 8
Render Output Units 4 4
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 64-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 55 nm
Transistors 210 million 242 million
Bus PCIe x16, PCI, PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 8500 GT

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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