GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be 79% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (79%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be quite a bit (about 450%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (450%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.