GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GT 340

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 340, which has a clock frequency of 550 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 96 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GT 340		69 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 340 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (750%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 will be much (about 238%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (238%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 340 is quite a bit (more or less 69%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 340		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (69%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.