GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which features clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 144 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 11200 (35%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be a lot (about 32%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3456 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 440 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8856 (164%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record 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 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.