GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2560 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 244 Watts (436%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 290 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 276800 (641%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be much (about 798%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 113744 (798%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (approximately 259%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 440 3GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36944 (259%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum 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 clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.