GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 310, which features GPU clock speed of 589 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 16 Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (126%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (240%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 should be quite a bit (more or less 274%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12888 (274%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2044 (87%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.