GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon RX 460

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 460, which has a core clock frequency of 1090 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 460		75 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 460 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 460		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (59%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 should be much (approximately 29%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 460		61040 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13808 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 460 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon RX 460		17440 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5632 (48%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has 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 better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.