GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 294 Watts (525%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be 433% faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 187200 (433%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be a lot (approximately 321%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45744 (321%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be a lot (about 68%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 440 3GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9744 (68%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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