GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be a lot (more or less 50%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be a lot (approximately 500%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22000 (500%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.