GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has a clock speed of 594 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 144 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 49 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GT 440 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (4%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is much (about 136%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 440 3GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19344 (136%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4656 (49%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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