Radeon HD 7870 XT vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 250, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1150 MHz on this specific card. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 7870 XT		6390 points
Radeon R7 250		1836 points
	Difference: 4554 (248%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (185%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 XT is 161% faster than the Radeon R7 250 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 118400 (161%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be a lot (more or less 270%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64800 (270%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is superior to the Radeon R7 250, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (270%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is 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 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.