GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which has a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M280X should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (450%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is quite a bit (more or less 970%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45688 (970%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is superior to the GeForce GT 310, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12044 (511%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be applied per second. This 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output 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 reach the maximum fill rate.