GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is 134% quicker than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB is quite a bit (about 184%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon HD 4850 X2 1GB		20000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.