GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5550, which has core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 5550 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (about 27%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 is much (about 57%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (57%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.