GeForce GT 440 3GB vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (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 should be a lot (about 231%) more effective at texture filtering 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 will be quite a bit (more or less 21%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of 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 better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.