GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1026 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is 670% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be quite a bit (about 233%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (approximately 400%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.