GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which comes with a clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M275X should theoretically be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (about 31%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 M275X. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11232 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M275X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2592 (22%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.