GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GT 310

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 310, which has a clock frequency of 589 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 16 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 310		31 Watts
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 is quite a bit (more or less 87%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 310. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 310		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4088 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 should be quite a bit (more or less 87%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 310, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 310		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2044 (87%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.