GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (236%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5870 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 110400 (256%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be quite a bit (more or less 377%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53744 (377%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be quite a bit (approximately 91%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12944 (91%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.