GeForce 830M vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 310, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 589 MHz. The DDR2 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 310 is 11% faster than the GeForce 830M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 830M will be quite a bit (approximately 249%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11752 (249%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 830M should be a lot (approximately 249%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5876 (249%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.