Radeon HD 4790 vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 550, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 550 should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4790 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4790		102400 MB/sec
	Difference: 12288 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 should be quite a bit (more or less 83%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4790. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (83%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 is much (more or less 83%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4790, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4790		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (83%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.