Introduction
After spectacular product launches in the past three months - of the GeForce GTX 500 series, NVIDIA made a quiet addition to its value~mainstream lineup, with the GeForce GT 440. This is probably the first time that a GPU vendor released a new desktop discrete GPU in an older GPU model family after launching a new one, an addition to the GeForce 400 series after giving its GeForce 500 series a solid start in the performance~enthusiast segments. The GeForce GT 440 existed in the wild as an OEM-only product in various strange configurations, today NVIDIA finalized its specifications, and released it to the consumer market.
The GeForce GT 440 is based on the same 40 nm silicon as the GeForce GT 430, codenamed GF108. Physically, GF108 packs 96 CUDA cores, and a 128-bit wide memory interface. The memory controller, coupled with the overall clock profile, are what separate the GT 440 from the GT 430. While the GT 430 uses GDDR3 memory, GT 440 uses GDDR5 memory that packs twice the memory bandwidth. The GPU is clocked at 810 MHz, the 96 CUDA cores at 1620 MHz, and memory at 900 MHz (3600 MHz GDDR5 effective), churning out 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Partners can also opt for cheaper GDDR3 memory. Since GDDR3 memory is synthetically half the cost of GDDR5, partners can opt for 1 GB of GDDR3 over 512 MB GDDR5, or 2 GB of GDDR3 over 1 GB GDDR5. The faster GDDR5 will always have the upper hand with performance, and that's what we're reviewing today.
On the chopping block is ASUS GeForce GT 440, an in-house design by ASUS that uses its own PCB and cooler designs. The card uses 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. ASUS' implementation claims to be superior to the reference design in many aspects, including an out of the box GPU overclocked speed of 822 MHz, high-grade "super alloy" electrical components (such as chokes, MOSFETs, and capacitors), and a better-performing cooler that features a dust-repelling fan with a longer life.
| Radeon HD 5450 | GeForce 9500 GT | GeForce GT 220 | Radeon HD 5550 | GeForce GT 430 | GeForce GT 440 OEM | GeForce GT 440 | Radeon HD 5570 | GeForce GT 240 | Radeon HD 5670 |
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Shader units | 80 | 32 | 48 | 320 | 96 | 144 | 96 | 400 | 96 | 400 |
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ROPs | 4 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 24 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
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GPU | Cedar | G96 | GT216 | Redwood | GF108 | GF106 | GF108 | Redwood | GT215 | Redwood |
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Transistors | 292M | 314M | 486M | 627M | 585M | ? | 585M | 627M | 727M | 627M |
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Memory Size | 512 MB | 256 MB / 512 MB | 512 MB / 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 512 MB / 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
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Memory Bus Width | 64 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 192 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit | 128 bit |
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Core Clock | 650 MHz | 550 MHz | 625 MHz | 550 MHz | 700 MHz | 800 MHz | 823 MHz | 650 MHz | 550 MHz | 775 MHz |
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Memory Clock | 800 MHz | 900 MHz | 790 MHz / 1012 MHz | 1000 MHz | 900 MHz | 768 MHz | 800 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1700 MHz / 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz |
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Price | $35 | $45 | $55 | $60 | $80 | OEM | $100 | $65 | $70 | $75 |
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Packaging
The package follows the company's typical box design. On the back you will find additional info on "Super Alloy Power" and the outputs of the card.
Contents
You will receive:
- Graphics card
- Driver CD + Documentation
The Card
ASUS is using their own black PCB design and a custom heatsink on the GT 440.
GeForce GT 440 requires two slots in your system.
The card has one analog VGA port, one DVI port and one HDMI port. Unlike AMD's latest GPUs, the output logic design is not as flexible. On AMD cards vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links), on NVIDIA, you are fixed to two DVI outputs and one HDMI/DP in addition to that. NVIDIA confirmed that you can use only two displays at the same time, so for a three monitor setup you would need two cards.
NVIDIA has included an HDMI sound device inside their GPU which does away with the requirement of connecting an external audio source to the card for HDMI audio. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.3a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit. NVIDIA also claims full support for the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 specification which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-Ray titles shipping with support for 3D output.
An SLI connector is not present on the GT 440. It will transfer all data via the PCI-Express bus when run in SLI.
Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (
front,
back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.