GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which comes with a core clock frequency of 970 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1425 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, 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 380 2G		190 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 380 2G should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (159%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G should be much (more or less 130%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61408 (130%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 2G is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19232 (163%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.