GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (118%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a small bit (about 17%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7808 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be quite a bit (approximately 133%) better at AA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.