GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 310, which has a clock frequency of 589 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 16 SPUs, 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 8500 GT		45 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 310 will be 25% faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 310 should be a lot (approximately 31%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1112 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 310 will be a lot (about 31%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 556 (31%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.