GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7850, which comes with core speeds of 860 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (118%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a bit (approximately 17%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7808 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15712 (133%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.