GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340 1GB, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 1408 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB will be quite a bit (about 65%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB is much (approximately 143%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6288 (143%)

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 past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.