GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 550, which has GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 186 Watts (372%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon RX 550 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 27008 (24%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (approximately 37%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon RX 550. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12960 (37%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1664 (9%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.