GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is a lot (about 281%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34832 (281%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be just a bit (approximately 5%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 592 (5%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported 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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This 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 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.