GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960, which has clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
	Difference: 89 Watts (287%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (600%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be much (more or less 1431%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67416 (1431%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be much (more or less 1431%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33708 (1431%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.