GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 1050 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, which comes with clock speeds of 1392 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 768 SPUs as well as 48 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 73216 (572%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 673%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58176 (673%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29088 (673%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could 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 clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends 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.