NVidia GeForce 8400M GS is the DirectX 10 capable successor of the GeForce Go 7400 for laptops and technologically a slower 8400M GT video card. The performance is slightly above the 7400 and therefore it can represent current games fluently with reduced details / resolutions. For people who play occasionally, it may be sufficient.
The particularity of this video card are the "Unified Shader". Pixel- and vertex-shaders do not exist any more but 16 of the so called stream processors do the graphic work.
Specifications :
- manufacturer: NVidia
- performance class: 3
- series: GeForce 8M
- codename: G84M
- chip clock: 400 MHz
- memory clock: 600 MHz
- memory bus: 64 bit
- hardware acceleration: DirectX 10, Shader 4.0
- maximal memory: 256 MB
- shared memory: no
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features: Shader clock frequence 800 MHz, PureVideo technology (H.264, VC-1, MPEG2, WMV9 decoding acceleration), HDCP-capable, PowerMizer 7.0 power management (dynamic switching between performance and energy economizing), HDR (High Dynamic-Range Lighting), designed for Windows Vista, 16x full screen AA, 16x AF independent of angles, 128-Bit HDR illumination with AA, PCI-E 16x, OpenGL 2.1, Gigathread technology
- size of the laptop: small and light-weight (e.g. 14.1")
- date: 05.09.2007
nVidia's GeForce 8400M GS is, quite frankly, ubiquitous at this point. It is the go-to mass dedicated graphics part for both Dell and HP, the two biggest notebook retailers in North America. If you're getting dedicated graphics in your laptop, chances are it's going to be one of these (with nVidia's 8600M parts running a moderate second).
Hardware wise, the 8400M GS boasts a minimal 64-bit memory bus and 16 unified shaders, offering the bare minimum for basic gaming performance. It remains comparable to its desktop counterpart.
Of course, the big question is: can it actually game halfway decently? Certainly a lot of people on the forums here will attest to this, but I figured I'd examine its performance for myself.
Benchmarks
Here you find a list with approximative benchmark values, which can be achieved with this video card. The values can strongly deviate due to different hardware (processor, memory).
- 3DMark06: min. 1266, avg: 1456, max: 1645
| Supporting the latest games With support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Shader Model 4.0 and High Dynamic-Range Lighting (HDR), GeForce 8400M GPUs let you rip through all of today's most advanced and cutting-edge games and applications. Experience real-time photo editing, or immerse yourself in the most complex, true-to-life gaming environments ever experienced on your thin and light notebook PC. And since all GeForce 8 Series GPUs are designed to support Windows Vista™ you can rest assured that you'll be enjoying your notebook PC well into the future. |
| NVIDIA PureVideo Technology The GeForce 8400M Series notebook GPUs with NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology deliver unmatched HD video performance to your thin and light notebook PC. Take your DVDs on the road with you and view stutter-free, incredibly life-like video without the annoying artifacts and imperfections of traditional PC-based video solutions. |
| GeForce 8400M G | GeForce 8400M GS | GeForce 8400M GT | |
| Stream Processors | 8 | 16 | 16 |
| Core Clock (MHz) | 400 | 400 | 450 |
| Shader Clock (MHz) | 800 | 800 | 900 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 600 | 600 | 600 |
| Maximum Memory | 256MB | 256MB | 512MB |
| Memory Interface | 64-bit | 64-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) | 9.6 | 9.6 | 19.2 |
| Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.6 |
Conclusion
For the frugal gamer, the GeForce 8400M GS has a lot to offer, with performance that plays all modern games fairly well, excepting Crysis, which has the misfortune of Tri-SLI'ed 8800 Ultras being just a little too big to fit in a laptop. But all other games should have few problems with the 8400M GS.
As a sidenote, I've found the 8400M's impact on my battery life to actually be a fairly minimal one, and a nice bonus to running it in Vista is not having to mess with PowerPlay settings at all on the battery; gaming performance on the battery is identical to performance plugged in because the GPU automatically ramps its clock speed back up as needed.
The nice thing about this review is being able to see how far we've come in just a couple short years. The 8400M GS is more or less the bottom of the barrel for mobile dedicated graphics, yet it offers very reasonable performance and runs modern games at better-than-minimum settings. The performance in FEAR was particularly striking; FEAR is still being used to punish high end hardware in reviews, yet the 8400M GS handles it with aplomb.
It's not all bread and roses, though, as true next generation games start trickling in. Unreal Engine 3 games make the 64-bit memory bus on the 8400M G and GS cry bloody murder, and Crysis barely runs playably. The recently published requirements for the PC version of Assassin's Creed also border on downright terrifying.
And then there's the story of DirectX 10, which is revealing itself to be a very ugly technological transition. Something that promised us improved performance instead strangles even high end hardware, leaving it as a checkbox feature on lower class parts. Thus far, the only game whose DirectX 10 mode doesn't massacre performance is Bioshock, but Bioshock barely uses DirectX 10 anyhow.
Still, the 8400M GS is a fantastic choice for older games, and a pretty reasonable one for modern and future games. It's not going to break speed records or win awards and it should NOT be relied on as a gamer's only graphics hardware, but it'll do in a pinch and it's ideal for the MMORPG geek who has to feed her addiction even when she's not in front of her desktop.