GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 210, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 589 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 210 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 210		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS should be a lot (about 129%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6088 (129%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is superior to the GeForce GT 210, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 210		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3044 (129%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.