GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should in theory be much better than the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB is a bit (more or less 15%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1856 (15%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be a little bit (approximately 15%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1856 (15%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.