GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4730, which features a core clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4730		140 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4730 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 111%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24832 (111%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (111%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.