GeForce GT 315 vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 340 1GB is 115% quicker than the GeForce GT 315 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 29120 (115%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB will be much (more or less 76%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (76%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 is a bit (approximately 14%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 600 (14%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.