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GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1100 MHz on this model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which features GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB 145 Watts
Radeon HD 5970 294 Watts
Difference: 149 Watts (103%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5970 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970 256000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 70400 MB/sec
Difference: 185600 (264%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (about 391%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970 232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 47232 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 184768 (391%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 will be much (about 686%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970 92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB 11808 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 80992 (686%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTS 250 512MB Radeon HD 5970
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year March 3, 2009 November 2009
Code Name G92a/b Hemlock XT
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 738 MHz 725 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 2200 MHz 4000 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 145 watts 294 watts
Bandwidth 70400 MB/sec 256000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 47232 Mtexels/sec 232000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 11808 Mpixels/sec 92800 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 1600 (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 160 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 64 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65/55 nm 40 nm
Transistors 754 million 2154 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

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GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 5970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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