GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 580, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1257 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 2000 MHz on this specific model. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 144 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon RX 580		185 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 580 will be 1070% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 239744 (1070%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 is a lot (about 1995%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 172368 (1995%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 580 is superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.