GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The Radeon R9 270X should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be a lot (approximately 69%) faster with regards to 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 should be quite a bit (approximately 171%) better at AA 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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that 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 ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.