Compare any two graphics cards:
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB
IntroThe GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The DDR2 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 400 MHz on this card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.
Display Graphs
Power Usage and Theoretical BenchmarksPower Consumption (Max TDP)
Memory BandwidthBoth cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)
Texel RateThe GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is a lot (about 80%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)
Pixel RateIf using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is superior to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)
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
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though. Specifications
Display Specifications
Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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.
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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