GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 640 DDR3

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 640 DDR3, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1782 MHz on this specific card. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GT 640 DDR3		65 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41024 (256%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 640 DDR3 should be quite a bit (more or less 511%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24088 (511%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12044 (511%)

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 over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.