GeForce 8800 GS vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
	Difference: 36 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 340 should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GS in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (42%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be quite a bit (more or less 50%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GS will be quite a bit (approximately 50%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 340, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (50%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many 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.