GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 310 should theoretically be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB is a little bit (about 2%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB should be a small bit (about 2%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44 (2%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at 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 the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.