GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 83200 (118%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (more or less 69%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32768 (69%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be quite a bit (approximately 171%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20192 (171%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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