GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 950 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 340 should be 79% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (79%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 will be a lot (approximately 450%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (450%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 will be much (approximately 38%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.