GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 380X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1425 MHz on this card. 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 380X		190 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 380X should be much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (159%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is quite a bit (approximately 163%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76928 (163%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be much (more or less 163%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19232 (163%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.