GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 270X, which has a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270X should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (155%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a lot (about 69%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32768 (69%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be quite a bit (approximately 171%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20192 (171%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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