GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 340, which has core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 340 should perform much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 should be quite a bit (about 300%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (300%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is quite a bit (approximately 100%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (100%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends 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 maximum fill rate.