GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1600 SPUs, 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

In theory, the Radeon HD 5970 should be 264% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, because of 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%) more effective at texture filtering 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 should be a lot (about 686%) more effective at FSAA 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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen 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 texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.