GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which has GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should be quite a bit (about 389%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (389%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 340 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (144%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.