GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically be just a bit better than the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is quite a bit (approximately 42%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB will be a lot (more or less 182%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (182%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.