GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with GPU clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 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 R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 181 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X will be 429% faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 233600 (429%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 518%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91200 (518%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (approximately 518%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (518%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.