GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has a clock frequency of 594 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 144 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 3GB is 238% faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be much (approximately 224%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (224%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.