GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R5 M230, which has a core clock frequency of 780 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R5 M230 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is quite a bit (about 255%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (255%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is a lot (about 42%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 920 (42%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.