GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6970, which features core clock speeds of 880 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 210 Watts (525%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 169600 (2650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 1525%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 79280 (1525%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 983%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25560 (983%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.