GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which features GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is quite a bit (approximately 80%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (80%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 should be a lot (approximately 80%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.