GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 390 8G should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 313600 (445%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is much (approximately 239%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 112768 (239%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is quite a bit (approximately 442%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 52192 (442%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.