GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 169600 (241%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB will be a lot (about 90%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42368 (90%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be a lot (about 117%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13792 (117%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.