GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5550, which has GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 memory running at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 470 will be 946% quicker than the Radeon HD 5550 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5550		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121120 (946%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is quite a bit (approximately 286%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5550. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25192 (286%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is much (about 452%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 5550, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19880 (452%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 reach the max fill rate.