GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 430 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 430 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 700 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 96 Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (94%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 1GB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 138%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6488 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 430 1GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.