GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which has clock speeds of 822 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 384 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (240%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti should be much faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115456 (902%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti should be much (approximately 1096%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48208 (1096%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24104 (1096%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.