GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5870, which has a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (172%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should be 182% faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be much (more or less 286%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (286%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is a lot (about 518%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.