GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB will be 167% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be much (about 110%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2256 (19%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.