GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon RX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 590, which makes use of a 12 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1469 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 2000 MHz on this specific card. It features 2304 SPUs along with 144 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon RX 590		175 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (272%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon RX 590 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		262144 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 239744 (1070%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 590 is much (more or less 2348%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		211536 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 202896 (2348%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 590 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		47008 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42688 (988%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 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.