GeForce GT 440 3GB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 89 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 27200 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is much (more or less 231%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32976 (231%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be a lot (more or less 21%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2448 (21%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.