GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which features core clock speeds of 625 MHz on the GPU, and 993 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		250 Watts
	Difference: 181 Watts (262%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB will be 134% faster than the GeForce GT 340 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		127104 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 72704 (134%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB should be much (more or less 184%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		50000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32400 (184%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is a lot (approximately 355%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (355%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.