GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which features a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1026 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, 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 quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (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 (more or less 555%) faster with regards to texture 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

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be much (about 882%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.