GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which features a core clock frequency of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, 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 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should be 125% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 133%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (133%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 430 1GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (17%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip 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 Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.