GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which comes with clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be quite a bit (approximately 155%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8656 (155%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (409%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.