GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6850, which features GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 960 Stream Processors, 48 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6850 should be 82% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 27%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10032 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is quite a bit (about 110%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12992 (110%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.