GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 310, which has GPU clock speed of 589 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 16 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (171%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 will be a lot (about 460%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21688 (460%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 is quite a bit (more or less 180%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4244 (180%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.