GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 217600 (309%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 130%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61568 (130%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15392 (130%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.