GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 902 MHz on this particular model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (242%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41728 (261%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 432%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20344 (432%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is superior to the GeForce GT 310, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10172 (432%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.