GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular model. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GTS in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (70%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 63%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (63%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is much (approximately 23%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1000 (23%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.