GeForce 8400 GS 512MB vs GeForce GTX 460

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460, which has core clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 768 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (275%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (1250%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is quite a bit (approximately 627%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8400 GS 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8400 GS 512MB		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32600 (627%)

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 8400 GS 512MB		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (523%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends 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.