GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce RTX 3060, which has core clock speeds of 1320 MHz on the GPU, and 1875 MHz on the (Unknown) MB of GDDR6 RAM. It features 3584 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 346240 (1546%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 will be much (about 1611%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 139200 (1611%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 should be much (about 1367%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 59040 (1367%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.