GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 96 SPUs, 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 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 36 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should be 6% faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is a lot (about 91%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.