GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which has core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is a lot (approximately 389%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (389%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should be much (about 144%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (144%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.