GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1026 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 71 Watts (158%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a lot (approximately 700%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25200 (700%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19800 (1100%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's 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 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.