GeForce GT 1030 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 280, which has a clock frequency of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1107 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is made up of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 206 Watts (687%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 280 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 1030 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 92544 (188%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a bit (approximately 19%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be a small bit (approximately 5%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 280, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 976 (5%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.