GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which comes with GPU clock speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M290X is 1100% quicker than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 140800 (1100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is quite a bit (about 1445%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63600 (1445%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is quite a bit (about 1136%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25000 (1136%)

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 transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.