GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which comes with a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8960 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is much (about 40%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7024 (40%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5860 (133%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the 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 core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.