GeForce GT 340 1GB vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 280, which comes with clock speeds of 602 MHz on the GPU, and 1107 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 167 Watts (242%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 87296 (160%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is much (about 174%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30560 (174%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is a lot (about 338%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14864 (338%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR 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 faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.