GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB features a GPU core clock speed of 738 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 128 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7770, which makes use of a 28 nm design. ATi has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

GeForce GTS 250 512MB Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

Radeon HD 7770 Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

Specifications

Model	GeForce GTS 250 512MB	Radeon HD 7770
Manufacturer	nVidia	ATi
Year	March 3, 2009	February 2012
Code Name	G92a/b	Cape Verde XT
Fab Process	65/55 nm	28 nm
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 3.0 x16
Memory	512 MB	1024 MB
Core Speed	738 MHz	1000 MHz
Shader Speed	1836 MHz	(N/A) MHz
Memory Speed	1100 MHz	1125 MHz
Unified Shaders	128	640
Texture Mapping Units	64	40
Render Output Units	16	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	256-bit	128-bit
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.2
Power (Max TDP)	145 watts	80 watts
Shader Model	4.0	5.0
Bandwidth	70400 MB/sec	72000 MB/sec
Texel Rate	47232 Mtexels/sec	40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	11808 Mpixels/sec	16000 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.