GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 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
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be 6% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is a lot (more or less 42%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (182%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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