GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 82 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (147%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (about 186%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32800 (186%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the GeForce GT 340, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many 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.