GeForce GT 310 vs Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4650 512MB, which features GPU core speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
Radeon HD 4650 512MB		55 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB is much (approximately 307%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		19200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14488 (307%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB will be a lot (more or less 104%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 310, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4650 512MB		4800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2444 (104%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.