GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has core clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 165 Watts (330%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 470 will be 946% faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 121120 (946%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be quite a bit (approximately 673%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29592 (673%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be quite a bit (approximately 1004%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22080 (1004%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.