GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 590, which uses a 12 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1469 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 2000 MHz on this specific model. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 144 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon RX 590		175 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (272%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 590, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		262144 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 249344 (1948%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 590 should be much (about 2348%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		211536 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 202896 (2348%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 590 should be much (about 988%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		47008 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42688 (988%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 calculated by multiplying the total 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.