GeForce GT 310 vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with core speeds of 900 MHz on the GPU, and 1026 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (274%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 310 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 82496 (516%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be a lot (about 511%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24088 (511%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce GT 310, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19244 (817%)

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 transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.