In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Intel HD Graphics 510 Desktop are very slightly better than the AMD Radeon HD 2900 GT.

The HD 2900 has a 250 MHz higher core clock speed and 4 more Texture Mapping Units than the Graphics 510. This results in the HD 2900 providing 4.4 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 HD 2900 has a 250 MHz higher core clock speed and 8 more Render Output Units than the Graphics 510. This results in the HD 2900 providing 5.8 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 HD 2900, 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 HD 2900 when running the latest games.

The HD 2900 has 256 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 Radeon HD 2900 GT has 240. However, the actual shader performance of the Graphics 510 is 101 and the actual shader performance of the HD 2900 is 94. The Graphics 510 having 7 better shader performance is not particularly notable, as altogether the HD 2900 performs better when taking into account other relevant data.

The Graphics 510 transistor size technology is 66 nm (nanometers) smaller than the HD 2900. This means that the Graphics 510 is expected to run massively cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the HD 2900. While they exhibit similar graphical performance, the Graphics 510 should consume less power than the HD 2900.

The HD Graphics 510 Desktop requires 47 Watts to run and the Radeon HD 2900 GT requires 150 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the Graphics 510 and a PSU with at least 550 Watts for the HD 2900. The HD 2900 requires 103 Watts more than the Graphics 510 to run. The difference is significant enough that the HD 2900 may have an adverse affect on your yearly electricity bills in comparison to the Graphics 510.