GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (220%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a lot (about 759%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33400 (759%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB will be a lot (about 882%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19400 (882%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of 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 amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.