GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 828 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should in theory be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 1408 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB should be a lot (approximately 65%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6288 (143%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should 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 applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.