GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has a core clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 837 MHz. It also makes use of a 320-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 448 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 184 Watts (594%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 470 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 310 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 117920 (737%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be much (approximately 621%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29280 (621%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21924 (931%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.