In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce GT 730 v3 Gigabyte 2GB Edition are significantly better than the Nvidia GeForce GT 520 v4.

The GT 730 has a 102 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the GT 520. This results in the GT 730 providing 1.6 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The GT 730 has a 102 MHz higher core clock speed than the GT 520 and the same number of Render Output Units. This results in the GT 730 providing 0.4 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The GT 730 was released over a year more recently than the GT 520, and so the GT 730 is likely to have better driver support, meaning it will be more optimized for running the latest games when compared to the GT 520.

The GT 730 has 1024 MB more video memory than the GT 520, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. This is supported by the fact that the GT 730 also has superior memory performance overall.

The GT 730 has 20.8 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the GT 520, which means that the memory performance of the GT 730 is slightly better than the GT 520.

Both the GeForce GT 520 v4 and the GeForce GT 730 v3 Gigabyte 2GB Edition have 96 Shader Processing Units. While the two GPUs have the same number of SPUs, the actual performance delivered by the GT 730 is 134 and by the GT 520 is 134. Knowing that the shader performance of the GT 730 is superior, it is not necessary to examine the GPUs' respective Texture and Pixel Fill Rates.

The GeForce GT 520 v4 requires 29 Watts to run and the GeForce GT 730 v3 Gigabyte 2GB Edition requires 49 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the GT 520 and a PSU with at least 300 Watts for the GT 730. The GT 730 requires 20 Watts more than the GT 520 to run. The difference is not significant enough for the GT 730 to have a noticeably larger impact on your yearly electricity bills than the GT 520.