GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6790, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 840 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1050 MHz on this model. It features 800 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (384%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6790 will be 740% faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (740%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be much (approximately 613%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28888 (613%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be much (about 470%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 310, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11084 (470%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.