GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce RTX 3070

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce RTX 3070, which features GPU core speed of 1500 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR6 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 5888 SPUs, 184 Texture Address Units, and 96 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce RTX 3070		220 Watts
	Difference: 173 Watts (368%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce RTX 3070 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce RTX 3070		(Unknown) MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (-100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3070 will be much (about 3094%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3070		276000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 267360 (3094%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3070 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3070		144000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 139680 (3233%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.