GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 575 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is 71% quicker than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 40896 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be much (about 57%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		18400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10400 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (approximately 135%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB		9200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (135%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.