GeForce 820M vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 310, which comes with a core clock frequency of 589 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 16 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 820M		15 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M should be much (approximately 144%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6792 (144%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 820M should be a lot (approximately 22%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 520 (22%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.