GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 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 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 1GB should be much faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9792 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be much (approximately 33%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.