GeForce GT 340 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 280, which has a core clock frequency of 602 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1107 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is made up of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 167 Watts (242%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 should be 160% faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 87296 (160%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (more or less 174%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30560 (174%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is quite a bit (about 338%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14864 (338%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range 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 worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.