GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 480, which features a clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 164608 (1286%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (approximately 855%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37600 (855%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31400 (1427%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.