GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270, which comes with GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 270 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 67312 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be much (more or less 74%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30528 (74%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 will be a lot (about 79%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12672 (79%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.