GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which features clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 960 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6850, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be much (about 27%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10032 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.