GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 5850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5850, which features core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1440(288x5) SPUs as well as 72 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 5850		151 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5850 should be 82% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 should be a bit (approximately 11%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		52200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4968 (11%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5850 will be a lot (approximately 96%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5850		23200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11392 (96%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.