GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 181 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 72704 (134%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 184%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32400 (184%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is superior to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (355%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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