GeForce GT 440 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which has core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		56 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 19 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB is 23% quicker than the GeForce GT 440 3GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 440 3GB		43200 MB/sec
	Difference: 9792 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB should be quite a bit (approximately 33%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 440 3GB will be quite a bit (about 33%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GT 440 3GB		14256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3568 (33%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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