GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which has a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 960 SPUs, 48 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 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 58 Watts (84%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (135%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be quite a bit (more or less 111%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (111%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20400 (464%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.