GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 294 Watts (525%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 187200 (433%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit (about 321%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45744 (321%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be quite a bit (approximately 68%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9744 (68%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.