GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GT 320

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 320, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 540 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 790 MHz on this particular card. It features 72 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 320 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 18880 (295%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 is much (more or less 149%) better at AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7760 (149%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 is quite a bit (more or less 66%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1720 (66%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.