GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 460 SE

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, which comes with a clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 288 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (750%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be quite a bit (approximately 609%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26800 (609%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18600 (845%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.