GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (540%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be 800% quicker than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be much (approximately 688%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33000 (688%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 800%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.