GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 924 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970M should be much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (650%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (approximately 1580%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69520 (1580%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be quite a bit (approximately 1916%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42152 (1916%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one 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 higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.