GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Geforce GTX 780

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 780, which has core speeds of 863 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2304 SPUs along with 192 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Geforce GTX 780		250 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 780 should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		288384 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275584 (2153%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 780 should be much (more or less 3666%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		165696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 161296 (3666%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 780 is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Geforce GTX 780		41424 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39224 (1783%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.