GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7770, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7770 is 2% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be a small bit (about 18%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7232 (18%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7770 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4192 (36%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.