GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce RTX 3080

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce RTX 3080, which uses a 8 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1440 MHz. The GDDR6X RAM works at a frequency of 1188 MHz on this particular card. It features 8704 SPUs as well as 272 TAUs and 96 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080		320 Watts
	Difference: 273 Watts (581%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3080 will be 5982% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080		778547 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 765747 (5982%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 will be quite a bit (approximately 4433%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080		391680 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 383040 (4433%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3080 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080		138240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 133920 (3100%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.