GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (246%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270X, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 153920 (609%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (about 700%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70000 (700%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is superior to the GeForce GT 315, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (540%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.