GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		110 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (96%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4850 512MB should be 47% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 20352 (47%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 512MB is a lot (approximately 75%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 512MB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10744 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be a lot (approximately 43%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4850 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 512MB		10000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4256 (43%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.