Radeon HD 4550 256MB vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M255, which features a core clock frequency of 940 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R5 M255, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 should be much (approximately 292%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (292%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R5 M255 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5120 (213%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.