GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 210, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 589 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 TAUs 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 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 will be quite a bit (more or less 83%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3928 (83%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.