GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 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
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should be 167% faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB will be a lot (approximately 110%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2256 (19%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card 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 amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.