GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (338%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5830 should perform much faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (1900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is a lot (approximately 762%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39600 (762%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is much (about 392%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10200 (392%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at 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 its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.