GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 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 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9792 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is much (more or less 33%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per 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 video 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 number of pixels the graphics 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 number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.