GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 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 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 217600 (309%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (about 130%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61568 (130%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15392 (130%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.