GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which features clock speeds of 797 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1152 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 860M should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (300%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a lot (about 1524%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71800 (1524%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a lot (about 441%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 310, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10396 (441%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.