GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (79%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 450%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (450%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 340 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated 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 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 video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.