GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5550, which features a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 should be a lot (more or less 144%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (144%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5550 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (144%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.