Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (600%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5830, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be a lot (more or less 833%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (833%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be a lot (more or less 433%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (433%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 reach the max fill rate.