GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which features 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 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		47 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 3GB will be 238% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM) in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is much (approximately 65%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5616 (65%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is superior to the GeForce 8600 GS (OEM), by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GS (OEM)		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.