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

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

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 identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a lot (approximately 80%) better at anisotropic filtering 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

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a better choice, and very much so. (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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.