GeForce 830M vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 310, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 589 MHz. The DDR2 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 310 should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce 830M overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 310		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 830M is a lot (more or less 249%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11752 (249%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 830M is superior to the GeForce GT 310, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5876 (249%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.