In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 are significantly better than the Intel HD Graphics 3000 Desktop.

The Graphics 3000 has a 310 MHz higher core clock speed than the 8600 GT, but the 8600 GT has 14 more Texture Mapping Units than the Graphics 3000. As a result, the 8600 GT exhibits a 6.9 GTexel/s better Texture Fill Rate than the Graphics 3000. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The Graphics 3000 has a 310 MHz higher core clock speed than the 8600 GT, but the 8600 GT has 6 more Render Output Units than the Graphics 3000. As a result, the 8600 GT exhibits a 2.6 GPixel/s better Pixel Fill Rate than the Graphics 3000. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The Graphics 3000 was released over three years more recently than the 8600 GT, and so the Graphics 3000 is likely to have far better driver support, meaning it will be much more optimized and ultimately superior to the 8600 GT when running the latest games.

The 8600 GT has 512 MB video memory, but the Graphics 3000 does not have an entry, so the two GPUs cannot be reliably compared in this area.

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 has 32 Shader Processing Units and the HD Graphics 3000 Desktop has 12. However, the actual shader performance of the 8600 GT is 43 and the actual shader performance of the Graphics 3000 is 65. The Graphics 3000 having 22 better shader performance is not particularly notable, as altogether the 8600 GT performs better when taking into account other relevant data.

The Graphics 3000 transistor size technology is 48 nm (nanometers) smaller than the 8600 GT. This means that the Graphics 3000 is expected to run much cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the 8600 GT.

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 requires 46 Watts to run and the HD Graphics 3000 Desktop requires 95 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 350 Watts for the 8600 GT and a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the Graphics 3000. The Graphics 3000 requires 49 Watts more than the 8600 GT to run. The difference is significant enough that the Graphics 3000 may have a slight adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the 8600 GT.