GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (79%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M290X will be 256% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 110400 (256%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be quite a bit (about 377%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53744 (377%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12944 (91%)

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 in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.