GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5670, which features GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 400(80x5) Stream Processors, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 5670 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is much (more or less 205%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31732 (205%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is a lot (about 90%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5670, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5608 (90%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.