GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be 400% quicker than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be a lot (more or less 255%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (255%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (136%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.