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

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 340, which features core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 96 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce GT 340 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be a lot (about 40%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 340. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen 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		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.