GeForce GT 340 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 340 1GB should in theory be a small bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 1408 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 1GB will be quite a bit (about 65%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be much (about 143%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 340 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.