GeForce GT 440 1.5GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 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 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce GT 440 1.5GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9792 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB will be much (about 33%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 1.5GB should be much (approximately 33%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 1.5GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

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 moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 get to the max fill rate.