GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which features core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should be a lot faster than 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 a lot (more or less 63%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is the winner, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.