GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 924 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970M should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (approximately 1580%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69520 (1580%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42152 (1916%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 max fill rate.