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

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which has a clock frequency of 600 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 will be quite a bit (approximately 80%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 should be much (about 80%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 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 (counted in MB 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. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 most pixels the graphics card can 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.