GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which has GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 92096 (1439%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be quite a bit (more or less 454%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (454%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19000 (731%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.