GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 features core speeds of 540 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 400 MHz on this particular model. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

Specifications

Model	GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2	GeForce 9400 GT 256MB
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	April 2007	August 2008
Code Name	G84	G96a
Fab Process	80 nm	65 nm
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe x16 2.0, PCI
Memory	512 MB	256 MB
Core Speed	540 MHz	550 MHz
Shader Speed	1180 MHz	1400 MHz
Memory Speed	400 MHz	400 MHz
Unified Shaders	32	16
Texture Mapping Units	16	8
Render Output Units	8	4
Bus Type	DDR2	GDDR2
Bus Width	128-bit	128-bit
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 10
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.0	OpenGL 3.0
Power (Max TDP)	47 watts	50 watts
Shader Model	4.0	4.0
Bandwidth	12800 MB/sec	12800 MB/sec
Texel Rate	8640 Mtexels/sec	4400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	4320 Mpixels/sec	2200 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.