GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 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 4870 1GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is a lot (more or less 110%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 1GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 4870 1GB, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 1GB		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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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 maximum fill rate.