GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 850M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 850M, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 876 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 850M should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M will be much (approximately 696%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30640 (696%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11816 (537%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.