GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 250, which features a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1150 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 132 Watts (203%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 will be 74% quicker than the Radeon R7 250 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (74%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (approximately 220%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52800 (220%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be quite a bit (about 140%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon R7 250, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (140%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.