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

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

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

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than 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 will be a lot (approximately 300%) faster with regards to AF 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 using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure 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 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.