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

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, which makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 650 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a speed of 400 MHz on this particular model. 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 the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8400 GS 512MB should be much (more or less 189%) more effective at AF 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory 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's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.