GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5830, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5830 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be just a bit (more or less 5%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2432 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 is a little bit (more or less 8%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 992 (8%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.