GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 850M, which features GPU clock speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 850M should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M is much (approximately 644%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30328 (644%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M will be much (approximately 495%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11660 (495%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.