GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be 167% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 110%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2256 (19%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many 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.