GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 217600 (309%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (about 130%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61568 (130%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 130%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.