Quadro NVS 290 vs NVS 315

Place in the ranking	1124	1202
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.07	0.03
Power efficiency	3.30	1.96
Architecture	Fermi 2.0 (2010−2014)	Tesla (2006−2010)
GPU code name	GF119	G86
Market segment	Workstation	Workstation
Release date	10 March 2013 (11 years ago)	4 October 2007 (17 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$159	$149

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

NVS 315 has 133% better value for money than NVS 290.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	48	16
Core clock speed	523 MHz	459 MHz
Number of transistors	292 million	210 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	19 Watt	21 Watt
Texture fill rate	4.184	3.672
Floating-point processing power	0.1004 TFLOPS	0.02938 TFLOPS
ROPs	4	4
TMUs	8	8

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 1.0 x16
Length	145 mm	168 mm
Width	1-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	None

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	DDR3	DDR2
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	256 MB
Memory bus width	64 Bit	64 Bit
Memory clock speed	875 MHz	400 MHz
Memory bandwidth	14 GB/s	6.4 GB/s

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors

1x DMS-59

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (11_0)	11.1 (10_0)
Shader Model	5.1	4.0
OpenGL	4.6	3.3
OpenCL	1.1	1.1
Vulkan	N/A	N/A
CUDA	2.1	1.1

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

NVS 315 0.90
+52.5%

NVS 290 0.59

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

NVS 315 346
+51.8%

NVS 290 228

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.90	0.59
Recency	10 March 2013	4 October 2007
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	256 MB
Chip lithography	40 nm	80 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	19 Watt	21 Watt

NVS 315 has a 52.5% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 5 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 100% more advanced lithography process, and 10.5% lower power consumption.

The NVS 315 is our recommended choice as it beats the Quadro NVS 290 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.