GeForce GT 340 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 memory runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this particular card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 340 should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (79%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 will be a lot (about 450%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (450%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 will be a lot (approximately 38%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.