GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7770, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7770 should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a small bit (about 18%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7232 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7770 is much (about 36%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4192 (36%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface 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 ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per 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 better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.