GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (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 should be much (about 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

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be a lot (more or less 33%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 reach the maximum fill rate.