GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1026 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 69696 (242%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be much (approximately 414%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23200 (414%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (approximately 671%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (671%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.