GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon RX 6950 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 6950 XT, which uses a 7 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1925 MHz. The GDDR6 memory runs at a frequency of 2250 MHz on this specific model. It features 5120 SPUs as well as 320 Texture Address Units and 128 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 6950 XT		335 Watts
	Difference: 288 Watts (613%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 6950 XT should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 6950 XT		589824 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 577024 (4508%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 6950 XT should be a lot (approximately 7030%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2. (explain)

Radeon RX 6950 XT		616000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 607360 (7030%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 6950 XT is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 6950 XT		246400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 242080 (5604%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.