GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB, in theory, should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB is a lot (about 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4850 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.