GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (250%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5830 will be 900% faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is much (about 918%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40400 (918%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10600 (482%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.