GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1126 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73728 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a lot (approximately 79%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20832 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 124%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14592 (124%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past 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. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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