GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6770 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this specific card. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		108 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should theoretically be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 6770 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		67200 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 31%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6770 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11232 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 22%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2592 (22%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.