GeForce 840M vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 310, which comes with clock speeds of 589 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 840M		30 Watts
GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so in theory they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 840M is quite a bit (approximately 424%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 840M		24696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19984 (424%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 840M is quite a bit (about 249%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 310, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 840M		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.