GeForce GT 315 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 594 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 17920 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is quite a bit (about 43%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is superior to the GeForce GT 315, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9256 (185%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.