GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 should be a lot (more or less 80%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (80%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1920 (80%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.