GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which comes with GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 96 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 116 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (253%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be much (about 405%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71200 (405%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is superior to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.