GeForce 825M vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which has GPU clock speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR2 RAM set to run at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 16 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 825M		33 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 825M should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 825M		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 825M is much (approximately 209%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 825M		13600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9200 (209%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce 825M is superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 825M		6800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4600 (209%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.