GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5750 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1150 MHz on this particular card. It features 720(144x5) SPUs along with 36 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		86 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 59 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5750 512MB should in theory be a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		73600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 87%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5750 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		25200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22032 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		11200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 608 (5%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR 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 worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many 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.