GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270X, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270X should be 155% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (155%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a lot (more or less 69%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32768 (69%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (approximately 171%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.