GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340, which has a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 should be a lot (about 274%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is a lot (approximately 87%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 310, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 number 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 better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.