GeForce GT 440 3GB vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which makes use of a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this specific model. It features 128 SPUs along with 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 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 89 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 27200 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be a lot (more or less 231%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32976 (231%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is a lot (approximately 21%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.