GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 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 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (59%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be 17% faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9152 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be a lot (approximately 42%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is much (approximately 127%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (127%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed 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 higher the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.