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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 uses a 80 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 540 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 700 MHz on this particular card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 47 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB 56 Watts
Difference: 9 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB 43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 22400 MB/sec
Difference: 20800 (93%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 65%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB 14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 8640 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 5616 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be much (about 230%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB 14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 4320 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9936 (230%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

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GeForce GT 440 3GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 GeForce GT 440 3GB
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year April 2007 October 2010
Code Name G84 GF106
Memory 256 MB 3072 MB
Core Speed 540 MHz 594 MHz
Memory Speed 1400 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 47 watts 56 watts
Bandwidth 22400 MB/sec 43200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 8640 Mtexels/sec 14256 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4320 Mpixels/sec 14256 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 144
Texture Mapping Units 16 24
Render Output Units 8 24
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 192-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 40 nm
Transistors 289 million 1170 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GT 440 3GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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