GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 880M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 880M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 954 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 880M		130 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (160%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 880M should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M should be a lot (more or less 2675%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		122112 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 117712 (2675%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M should be much (approximately 1288%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		30528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28328 (1288%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card 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 Render Output Units by the the card's 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.