GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 850 MHz on this particular card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		70 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (75%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		54400 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (750%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 is quite a bit (about 238%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		17600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (238%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5		4400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (69%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.