GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5970, which has GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 238 Watts (425%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 will be 493% faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 212800 (493%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (more or less 1527%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 217744 (1527%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5970 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 78544 (551%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on many 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.