GeForce GT 340 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 280, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 1107 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 280 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (about 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.