GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which has a GPU core clock speed of 860 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (225%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (2300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be quite a bit (about 958%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49840 (958%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 is quite a bit (more or less 958%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24920 (958%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated 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 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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