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GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

The GeForce GT 310 makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 589 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 420, which features a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 48 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310 31 Watts
GeForce GT 420 50 Watts
Difference: 19 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 420 should in theory be much better than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420 28800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310 16000 MB/sec
Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be just a bit (approximately 19%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 420 5600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310 4712 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 888 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be a little bit (approximately 19%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 310, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GT 420 2800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310 2356 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 444 (19%)

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

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GeForce GT 310

Amazon.com

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GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GT 310 GeForce GT 420
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year November 2009 September 2010
Code Name GT218 GF108
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 589 MHz 700 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 31 watts 50 watts
Bandwidth 16000 MB/sec 28800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 4712 Mtexels/sec 5600 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2356 Mpixels/sec 2800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 16 48
Texture Mapping Units 8 8
Render Output Units 4 4
Bus Type DDR2 GDDR3
Bus Width 64-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 40 nm
Transistors 260 million 585 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 310

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 420

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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