GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 38 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (240%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 274%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12888 (274%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is a lot (approximately 87%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.