GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 340, which features a clock speed of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 340 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 should be a lot (about 389%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 should be quite a bit (approximately 144%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past 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 it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.