GeForce 8500 GT vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR3 RAM. 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 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB is a lot (approximately 33%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 256MB will be a lot (approximately 33%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 600 (33%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.