GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1026 MHz on this particular model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 66 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 85696 (670%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be quite a bit (approximately 555%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (555%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19400 (882%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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