GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 470, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1650 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 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 470		120 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (155%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon RX 470 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 470		211200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (1550%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 will be quite a bit (more or less 1272%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 470		118528 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109888 (1272%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 470 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 470		29632 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25312 (586%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.