GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR2 memory running at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 16 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (210%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GTX should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (575%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is a lot (more or less 736%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32400 (736%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8800 GTX is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (527%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.