GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M390X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 723 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M390X should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (127%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X will be quite a bit (more or less 96%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45312 (96%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M390X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11328 (96%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.