GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has core clock speeds of 594 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 144 SPUs as well as 24 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 440 3GB, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 20800 (93%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be much (approximately 65%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5616 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is quite a bit (about 230%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9936 (230%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.