GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has core clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8500 GT in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be much (approximately 296%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10656 (296%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be a lot (more or less 692%) better at AA than the GeForce 8500 GT, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12456 (692%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

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