GeForce 820M vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which features core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR2 memory. It features 16 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 820M		15 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 820M should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M should be a lot (more or less 161%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7104 (161%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 820M will be a lot (approximately 31%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 676 (31%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.