GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 625 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 993 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce GT 340 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a lot (approximately 42%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 127%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.