Compare any two graphics cards:
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB
IntroThe GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 comes with a clock speed of 540 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 400 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 80 nm design. It features 32 SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.Compare all of that to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which has clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR2 memory. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.
Display Graphs
Power Usage and Theoretical BenchmarksPower Consumption (Max TDP)
Memory BandwidthBoth cards have the exact same bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform exactly the same. (explain)
Texel RateThe GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a lot (more or less 96%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)
Pixel RateIf running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)
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
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though. Specifications
Display Specifications
Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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