GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6850, which features core clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 960 SPUs along with 48 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a lot (about 27%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10032 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be a lot (about 110%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12992 (110%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory 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 higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few 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.