GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 6500 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which comes with core speeds of 2200 MHz on the GPU, and 2250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR6 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 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 6500 XT		107 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6500 XT should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		147456 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 134656 (1052%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6500 XT is quite a bit (approximately 1530%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 132160 (1530%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6500 XT is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon RX 6500 XT		70400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 66080 (1530%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.