GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 580, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1257 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 2000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon RX 580		185 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon RX 580 should in theory be much better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 249344 (1948%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 1995%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 172368 (1995%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 is a lot (about 831%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35904 (831%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.