GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare 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 works at a speed of 1026 MHz on this specific model. 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 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (more or less 233%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20160 (233%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (approximately 400%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.