GeForce 830M vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 550 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR2 memory set to run at 400 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 16 SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 830M		25 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 830M should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 830M		14400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 830M should be a lot (approximately 274%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 830M		16464 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12064 (274%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 830M is quite a bit (more or less 274%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 830M		8232 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6032 (274%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.