GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (32%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB will be a lot (more or less 42%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be much (approximately 182%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (182%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.