In SQL, is UPDATE always faster than DELETE+INSERT?

Question

Say I have a simple table that has the following fields:

1. ID: int, autoincremental (identity), primary key
2. Name: varchar(50), unique, has unique index<

Answer 1

Obviously, the answer varies based on what database you are using, but UPDATE can always be implemented faster than DELETE+INSERT. Since in-memory ops are mostly trivial anyways, given a hard-drive based database, an UPDATE can change a database field in-place on the hdd, while a delete would remove a row (leaving an empty space), and insert a new row, perhaps to the end of the table (again, it's all in the implementation).

The other, minor, issue is that when you UPDATE a single variable in a single row, the other columns in that row remain the same. If you DELETE and then do an INSERT, you run the risk of forgetting about other columns and consequently leaving them behind (in which case you would have to do a SELECT before your DELETE to temporarily store your other columns before writing them back with INSERT).