GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 192 Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be much (approximately 233%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

If using 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 8600 GT 1GB 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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