GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which comes with GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 850 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also 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) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8960 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is much (about 40%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7024 (40%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.