GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

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

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 should be quite a bit (more or less 83%) better at AF 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

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a lot (about 83%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 210, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.