GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs 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

In theory, the Radeon HD 5870 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be much (approximately 377%) better 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

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a lot (approximately 91%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 440 3GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.