GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB is a lot (more or less 33%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB should be a lot (more or less 33%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 600 (33%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.