GeForce GT 430 1GB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 3GB will be 50% faster than the GeForce GT 430 1GB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be much (approximately 27%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 430 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3056 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 409%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (409%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.