GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (117%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be 112% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is much (approximately 70%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (173%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.