GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which has GPU core speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2048 Stream Processors, 128 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 380X		190 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380X, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is a lot (more or less 163%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76928 (163%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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.