GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 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 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9792 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be a lot (approximately 33%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.