GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 550, which has a clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 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 550		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 550, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 101888 (796%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 is quite a bit (about 307%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26560 (307%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 550 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13280 (307%)

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 over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.