GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 570, which comes with a core clock speed of 732 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also uses a 320-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 60 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 103 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 570 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 53504 (54%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 will be much (more or less 53%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15120 (53%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be quite a bit (more or less 36%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (36%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.