Different between Partial and RenderPartial in asp.net MVC ?

In this article, I describe Different between Partial and RenderPartial in asp.net mvc. Both of these helper methods are used to render a partial views.

The return type of RenderPartial is Void, where as Partial return MvcHtmlString.

InvokePartial View(in Razor View):

@Html.Partial("Partial viewName", Model)

InvokePartial View(in Aspx View):

<%: Html.Partial("Partial viewName", Model)%>

InvokeRenderPartial View(In Razor View):

 {Html.RenderPartial("Partial viewName", Model);}

InvokeRenderPartial View(in Aspx View):

<% Html. RenderPartial("Partial view Name", Model); %>

Example

@Html.Partial("_Product", item)

{Html.RenderPartial("_Product", item);}

 The main difference is that RenderPartial() returns void and the output will be written directly to the output stream, where as Partial() returns MvcHtmlString which can be assigned to a variable and manipulate it if required. So when there is a need to assign the output to a variable for manipulating it, then use Partial() else use RenderPartial().  RenderPartial() is better performance over partial().