GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 1030

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 1030, which comes with core clock speeds of 1265 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 384 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 1030 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 36352 (284%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is a lot (approximately 820%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36080 (820%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be a lot (more or less 820%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18040 (820%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.