GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 250X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon R7 250X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X should be just a bit (approximately 6%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250X		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (35%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.