GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 8400 GS 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8400 GS 512MB should be much (about 189%) better at AF than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		1800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3400 (189%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1700 (189%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.