Review – GeForce GT 440: NVIDIA’s Fastest Entry Level Card

Unlike the GeForce GTX 560 Ti or the flagship GTX 580 and 570 before it, NVIDIA released the GT 440 without too much fuss. The new card is aimed at the entry level segment of the market, set to replace the GT 430. If you’ve known the latter already, you will probably be interested to learn of the differences between the two. To see where the GT 440 sits among its peers from NVIDIA, let’s take a look at the specification table below.

	GeForce GT 430	GeForce GT 440	GeForce GT 440 (OEM)
DirectX	DirectX 11	DirectX 11	DirectX 11
Processor Cores	96	96	144
Core Clock	700 MHz	810 MHz	594 MHz
Shader Clock	1400 MHz	1620 MHz	1536 MHz
Memory Ammount	1 GB	512 MB – 1 GB	1.5 or 3 GB
Memory Interface	128 bit	128 bit	192 bit
Memory Clock	800-900 MHz	800-900 MHz	800-900 MHz
DRAM Type	GDDR3	GDDR3/GDDR5	GDDR3
Power Connectors	None	None	None
PSU Recommended	300 Watt	300 Watt	–
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	49 Watt	65 Watt	56 Watt
GPU Thermal Threshold	98C	98C	100C
Bus Support	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16

The GeForce GT 440 comes in several different variants, they are:

GeForce GT 440 512 MB GDDR5

This is a GT 440 model with 512 MB of 128-bit GDDR5 memory which, in our opinion, should be the enough for entry-level gaming since the graphics card likely won’t be able to handle resolutions above 1360×768 anyway. Unfortunately, the card uses a full-height PCB board, so it might be unsuitable for a low profile HTPC/ Mini PC.

GeForce GT 440 1GB GDDR3

There is also a 1-GB variant of the GT 440, but the memory is of the slower GDDR3 type like the one used on its predecessor, the GT 430. The specifications between these two cards, the GT 430 and GT 440, are also similar with the only difference being their operating frequencies. GT 440’s core and memory are clocked slightly higher at 810/3600 MHz, respectively.Our GT 440 sample from MSI is based on this variant.

Good news is, some AIB vendors have apparently decided to produce GT 440 cards in low-profile/ half board form factor like the GT 430 card pictured above. We have yet to hear if NVIDIA would release a reference, low-profile GT 440 card in the future.

GeForce GT 440 OEM 1.5 GB – 3 GB

Finally, we have the GT 440 OEM 1.5 GB-3 GB. . Amongst other GT 440 variants, these cards are perhaps the most interesting. They have already been introduced last October, months before the official announcement of GeForce GT 440 itself. This could cause some confusions. Even more confusing is the fact that GT 440 OEM is far superior compared to the “plain” GT 440. Not only does it come equipped with up to 3 GB of on board memory (an obvious overkill for a card of its class), the GT 440 is also armed with more numerous stream processors (144, versus 96 on the “plain” GT 440) and ROPs (24). That should make GT 440 OEM the fastest entry level card from NVIDIA that doesn’t need to be plugged to an extra power cable to function. Too bad the GT 440 OEM is going to be available for the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) market only. It is unlikely that end consumers will be able to purchase them separately.

Features

Feature wise, the GT 440 is virtually identical with the GT 430. Therefore, there is no new feature that can be found on this particular graphics card series. The features themselves are as follows:

• Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Support
• NVIDIA PhysX® Technology
• NVIDIA 3D Vision™ ready
• Hardware Video Decode Acceleration
• NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology
• TrueHD and DTS-HD Audio Bitstreaming Support
• HDMI 1.4 compatible
• Microsoft Windows 7 Support

Because of their similar feature sets, both the GT 430 and GT 440 are intended to fill the same, HTPC/ Mini PC-oriented market segment, only the latter will be replacing the former. Although it is clearly not primarily intended for gaming purposes, according to the information at NVIDIA’s website, users of GT 440 should still be able to play DirectX 11 games under reasonable graphics settings. Let us proceed to the benchmarks to see if that is really the case!