GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 340, which has core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. 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		69 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (186%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (135%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (about 336%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (336%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (336%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.