GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7770, which has GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7770 should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is just a bit (approximately 18%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7232 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 should be much (about 36%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4192 (36%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 graphics 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 ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.