GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 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 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) is much (about 80%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (80%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1920 (80%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.