GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 210, which has core speeds of 589 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) should be much (about 83%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3928 (83%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) is a lot (more or less 83%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 210, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 210		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1964 (83%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.