GeForce GT 315 vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 420, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 700 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 48 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 420 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 3520 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 will be a lot (about 79%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4400 (79%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 315 is superior to the GeForce GT 420, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (79%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.