Radeon HD 4550 512MB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 is just a bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5450 is a small bit (approximately 8%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 200 (8%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.