GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be 32% faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (32%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 42%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be much (more or less 182%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.