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GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this particular card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which features GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 70400 MB/sec
Difference: 44800 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be quite a bit (about 79%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB 47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 20832 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be much (about 124%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 11808 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 14592 (124%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTS 250 512MB Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year March 3, 2009 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name G92a/b R680
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 738 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 2200 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 145 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 70400 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 47232 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 11808 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen 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 the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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