GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 81 Watts (117%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be 112% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (112%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB will be much (about 70%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB should be a lot (more or less 173%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (173%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 maximum fill rate.