GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1026 MHz on this card. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be 340% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 76096 (340%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be a lot (more or less 233%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be a lot (more or less 400%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.