GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has a clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 116 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT is 253% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (253%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be a lot (about 405%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (405%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is a lot (more or less 573%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25200 (573%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.