GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which has a clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (113%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB is much (about 100%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (100%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so in theory they should be equally good at at AA, and be able to handle the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.