GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which has a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (450%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X will be quite a bit (approximately 970%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45688 (970%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is much (approximately 511%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.