GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (540%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be much (approximately 688%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33000 (688%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (800%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.