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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 has core speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 210, which comes with GPU clock speed of 589 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 16 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is much (more or less 83%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3928 (83%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is a lot (approximately 83%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 210, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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

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GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2

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GeForce GT 210

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2	GeForce GT 210
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	April 2007	October 2009
Code Name	G84	GT218
Memory	512 MB	512 MB
Core Speed	540 MHz	589 MHz
Memory Speed	800 MHz	1600 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	47 watts	31 watts
Bandwidth	12800 MB/sec	12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate	8640 Mtexels/sec	4712 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	4320 Mpixels/sec	2356 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	32	16
Texture Mapping Units	16	8
Render Output Units	8	4
Bus Type	DDR2	DDR3
Bus Width	128-bit	64-bit
Fab Process	80 nm	40 nm
Transistors	289 million	260 million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe 2.0
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

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