GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1026 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 66496 (208%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit (about 167%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (more or less 300%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16200 (300%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.