GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 600 MHz. The DDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 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 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) will be a lot (approximately 80%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should be much (about 80%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.