GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which features a core clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 204 Watts (510%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 2906% faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 185984 (2906%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (more or less 850%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44208 (850%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34456 (1325%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.