GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 7790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7790, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1500 MHz on this particular card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 7790		85 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7790, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		96000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 52800 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7790 should be much (more or less 293%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		56000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41744 (293%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7790 is superior to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 7790		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1744 (12%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.