GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce RTX 3050

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce RTX 3050, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1552 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR6 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 2560 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce RTX 3050		130 Watts
	Difference: 83 Watts (177%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce RTX 3050 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		229376 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 216576 (1692%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3050 is much (about 1337%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 115520 (1337%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3050 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		49664 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45344 (1050%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one 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 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.