GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB is a lot (approximately 110%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 per second.

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