GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5830, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (465%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5830 should be 700% quicker than the GeForce GT 310 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is quite a bit (more or less 851%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40088 (851%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is superior to the GeForce GT 310, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10444 (443%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.