GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB will be just a bit (more or less 9%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB will be a small bit (about 9%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (9%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.