GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which has GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1600 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 149 Watts (103%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5970 should be 264% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 185600 (264%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (approximately 391%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 184768 (391%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be quite a bit (approximately 686%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80992 (686%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high 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 texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.