GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which features core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (172%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (182%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (more or less 286%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50400 (286%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be quite a bit (about 518%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (518%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.