GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs GeForce GT 340 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 340 1GB, which has a core clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 340 1GB		69 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be 16% faster than the GeForce GT 340 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 8960 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is a lot (approximately 40%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 340 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7024 (40%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 340 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5860 (133%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most 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 ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.