GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4890 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (64%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4890 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 26304 (27%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 1GB will be much (about 39%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 1GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (39%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the Radeon HD 4890 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4890 1GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (35%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.