GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 will be 1100% faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be much (more or less 1718%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75600 (1718%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29800 (1355%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.