GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 281%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34832 (281%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 592 (5%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.