GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6970, which has a core clock frequency of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 is 150% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105600 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a lot (more or less 79%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37248 (79%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16352 (138%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus 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 higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.