GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R7 250

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 250, which has a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1150 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 384 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

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 is 74% quicker than the Radeon R7 250 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (approximately 220%) better at 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 is a lot (about 140%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R7 250, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.