GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 420, which has core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 420 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 420 will be a little bit (more or less 19%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 888 (19%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 420 is superior to the GeForce GT 310, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 444 (19%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends 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.