GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is much (about 85%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be much (approximately 85%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12144 (85%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.