GeForce 940M vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 280, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 1107 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 940M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 125696 (786%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (approximately 87%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 940M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22432 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be quite a bit (about 125%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 940M, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10688 (125%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.