GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1026 MHz on this model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76096 (340%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (about 233%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17280 (400%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.