GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (2300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (more or less 1208%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62800 (1208%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be much (about 946%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24600 (946%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.