GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which features GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 192 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be quite a bit (approximately 233%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.