GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses 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 card. It features 192 SPUs along with 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 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be 340% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76096 (340%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti is quite a bit (about 233%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be much (more or less 400%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.