GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this card. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 62%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5456 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is much (more or less 224%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 230, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (224%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.