GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (236%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5870 should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 110400 (256%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (approximately 377%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53744 (377%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12944 (91%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.