GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR2 RAM is set to run at a speed of 400 MHz on this specific card. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (75%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is quite a bit (more or less 96%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4240 (96%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2120 (96%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.