GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6790, which features a clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 800 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6790 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (91%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be a lot (about 41%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13632 (41%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 is a bit (approximately 14%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1632 (14%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.