GeForce 9400 GT 256MB vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M255, which has a core clock frequency of 940 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency 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 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R5 M255 is 25% faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 is quite a bit (about 327%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14400 (327%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 is a lot (about 242%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5320 (242%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.