GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has GPU core speed of 1096 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 960M, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be a lot (more or less 896%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39440 (896%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15336 (697%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.