GeForce GT 340 1GB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 TAUs 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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall. (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 will be a lot (about 168%) better at 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

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be much (approximately 168%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.