GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 460, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 675 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (200%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (575%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be much (more or less 759%) better at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33400 (759%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14000 (636%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.