GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which features a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (168%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 2GB should be 167% faster than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (167%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB will be much (more or less 110%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15744 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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