GeForce GT 210 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular model. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4550 512MB should be a bit (more or less 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4550 512MB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.