GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, which has a clock speed of 625 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 993 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, 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 1GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (96%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB is 47% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		63552 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 20352 (47%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 1GB should be a lot (more or less 75%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 1GB		25000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10744 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 4850 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.