GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4730, which has a core clock speed of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 640(128x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, 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 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4730 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is much (more or less 111%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24832 (111%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.