GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 600 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised 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 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 310 should be 25% faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB will be a small bit (more or less 2%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4550 512MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44 (2%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 most pixels that 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 number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.