GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 vs GeForce GT 440 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GT 440 3GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 594 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 144 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		47 Watts
GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 440 3GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (238%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB is much (more or less 65%) better at AF than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5616 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be quite a bit (about 230%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2		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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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.