Radeon R7 250X 2GB vs Radeon R9 285

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 285, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 918 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
Radeon R9 285		190 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 285 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R7 250X 2GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		176000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 104000 (144%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 will be quite a bit (more or less 157%) better at AF than the Radeon R7 250X 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		102816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62816 (157%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 285 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		29376 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250X 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13376 (84%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.