GeForce 940M vs GeForce GT 420

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 420, which has a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 48 SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 420 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 940M in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 940M will be quite a bit (about 359%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20128 (359%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 940M should be a lot (about 206%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5776 (206%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.