GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which has GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 896 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M385X should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is a lot (approximately 1207%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56888 (1207%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M385X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15244 (647%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number 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 also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.