GeForce GT 315 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this particular card. It features 960 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 88 Watts (169%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 is 470% quicker than the GeForce GT 315 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 118912 (470%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (more or less 684%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68400 (684%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18520 (370%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.