GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 4550 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 512MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (124%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is much (about 197%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9456 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be much (more or less 494%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 512MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11856 (494%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.