GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which features GPU core speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR2 memory set to run at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 16 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is quite a bit (approximately 96%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4240 (96%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2120 (96%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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.