GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a clock speed of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (124%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be 238% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a lot (about 197%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9456 (197%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11856 (494%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.