GeForce GT 340 1GB vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 280, which has GPU clock speed of 602 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 1107 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

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

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 280 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be quite a bit (more or less 174%) better at AF 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, and very much so. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.