GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280, which has a GPU core clock speed of 933 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (346%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 196800 (456%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is much (about 633%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90240 (633%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (109%)

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 across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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