GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6770, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1050 MHz on this particular model. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6770 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be much (about 31%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6770. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 is quite a bit (more or less 22%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many 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.