GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4890 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4890 2GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 975 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 800(160x5) Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4890 2GB		190 Watts
	Difference: 134 Watts (239%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		124800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (189%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4890 2GB should be quite a bit (about 181%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25744 (181%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4890 2GB is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4890 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1744 (12%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.