GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with core speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 219 Watts (706%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 480 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 161408 (1009%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is much (approximately 791%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37288 (791%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be a lot (more or less 1326%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31244 (1326%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.