GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 310, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 589 MHz. The DDR2 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 166 Watts (535%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be quite a bit (about 1530%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72088 (1530%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be much (approximately 715%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 310, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16844 (715%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.