GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be a lot (more or less 300%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (300%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (100%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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