GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 340, which has core speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 36 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 340 is 21% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be much (about 91%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (118%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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