GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) vs GeForce 8400 GS 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, which uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a frequency of 400 MHz on this card. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8400 GS 512MB is much (approximately 189%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		1800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3400 (189%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8400 GS 512MB should be a lot (about 189%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM), and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1700 (189%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.