GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (170%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 91200 (211%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a lot (about 254%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36144 (254%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14544 (102%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.