GeForce GTS 250 1GB 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 RAM runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7770 is 2% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be a little bit (more or less 18%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7232 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7770 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.