GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290, which features GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2560 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 231 Watts (335%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 265600 (488%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be much (approximately 627%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 110400 (627%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is much (more or less 1064%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46800 (1064%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.