GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 should be 2906% quicker than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (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 quite a bit (about 850%) more effective at AF 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 using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 max amount of data (measured in 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 speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends 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.