GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which has a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1440(288x5) SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 82 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5850 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (135%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be quite a bit (about 197%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34600 (197%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5850 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (427%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.