GeForce GT 340 1GB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has core speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be much (approximately 168%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29632 (168%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7408 (168%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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