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GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 5550

Intro

The GeForce 9400 GT 256MB uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 400 MHz on this particular card. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5550, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a speed of 400 MHz on this card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 should be much (about 100%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550 8800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB 4400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4400 (100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5550 is a lot (approximately 100%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5550 4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB 2200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 2200 (100%)

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

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GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 5550

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9400 GT 256MB Radeon HD 5550
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year August 2008 February 9, 2010
Code Name G96a Redwood LE
Memory 256 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 550 MHz
Memory Speed 800 MHz 800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 50 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 12800 MB/sec 12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate 4400 Mtexels/sec 8800 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 2200 Mpixels/sec 4400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 16 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 8 16
Render Output Units 4 8
Bus Type GDDR2 DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 314 million 627 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0, PCI PCIe 2.1 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should 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, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most 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 calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5550

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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