GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which has core speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is much (more or less 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be much (more or less 127%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.