GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270, which has GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, 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		182 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be a lot (about 95%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35136 (95%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.