GeForce GT 340 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has a clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (254%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137984 (254%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 181%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31808 (181%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32656 (742%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics 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 number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel 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 reach the max fill rate.