GeForce GT 210 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB is just a bit (approximately 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB is a bit (more or less 2%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 210, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 210		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.