GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M230, which features a clock speed of 780 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R5 M230 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be a lot (more or less 255%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (255%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 is much (more or less 42%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 920 (42%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.