GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 210

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 210, which has core speeds of 589 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 210		31 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 210 is just a bit (about 7%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 312 (7%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 210 is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GT 210		2356 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 156 (7%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per 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 higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.