In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Intel HD Graphics 510 Desktop are significantly better than the Nvidia GeForce GT 120.

The GeForce GT 120 has a 150 MHz higher core clock speed and 8 more Texture Mapping Units than the Graphics 510. This results in the GeForce GT 120 providing 5.2 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The GeForce GT 120 has a 150 MHz higher core clock speed and 4 more Render Output Units than the Graphics 510. This results in the GeForce GT 120 providing 2.6 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The Graphics 510 was released over three years more recently than the GeForce GT 120, and so the Graphics 510 is likely to have far better driver support, meaning it will be much more optimized and ultimately superior to the GeForce GT 120 when running the latest games.

The GeForce GT 120 has 512 MB video memory, but the Graphics 510 does not have an entry, so the two GPUs cannot be reliably compared in this area.

The HD Graphics 510 Desktop has 12 Shader Processing Units and the GeForce GT 120 has 32. However, the actual shader performance of the Graphics 510 is 101 and the actual shader performance of the GeForce GT 120 is 40. The Graphics 510 having 61 better shader performance and an altogether better performance when taking into account other relevant data means that the Graphics 510 delivers a marginally smoother and more efficient experience when processing graphical data than the GeForce GT 120.

The Graphics 510 transistor size technology is 41 nm (nanometers) smaller than the GeForce GT 120. This means that the Graphics 510 is expected to run much cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the GeForce GT 120.

The HD Graphics 510 Desktop requires 47 Watts to run and the GeForce GT 120 requires 50 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the Graphics 510 and a PSU with at least 350 Watts for the GeForce GT 120. The GeForce GT 120 requires 3 Watts more than the Graphics 510 to run. The difference is not significant enough for the GeForce GT 120 to have a noticeably larger impact on your yearly electricity bills than the Graphics 510.