GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which has core clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be quite a bit (about 224%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (224%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12056 (548%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.