GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce 9400 GT 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce 9400 GT 256MB, which has core clock speeds of 550 MHz on the GPU, and 400 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR2 RAM. It features 16 SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		50 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9400 GT 256MB should be quite a bit (about 22%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		4400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 800 (22%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9400 GT 256MB will be a lot (about 22%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9400 GT 256MB		2200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (22%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.