GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250, which features a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1150 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 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
Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 250 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (475%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250 will be quite a bit (approximately 445%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (445%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (264%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.