GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GT 440 1.5GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GTX should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 27200 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is much (more or less 203%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28944 (203%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is quite a bit (approximately 32%) better at AA than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3456 (32%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip 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 amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 also depends 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 maximum fill rate.