GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1400 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 9 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270X should be 60% faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 67312 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be a lot (approximately 93%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38528 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15872 (98%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.