GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a frequency of 993 MHz on this specific model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units 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 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4850 2GB should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GT 340 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB is much (approximately 42%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB is much (about 127%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.