Both horrible, but which is more horrible to you?

Frame rate.

frame rate.

Depends on the extent to which the framerate drops. But I'd say probably framerate in most cases.

If we're talking about mild for both, frame drops are much worse IMO.

Frame rate drops without a doubt... Shits is always so damn noticeable... At least with tearing, there is sometimes a solution such has turning VSync on when playing games but with frame rate drops... there is usually a no easy solution without sacrificing something

Drawing an embarrassing blank here at 2 am. Screen tearing is like pop in textures right? For me, it's the framerate though.

Framerates, no question.

Framerates, even with games on console like Far Cry 3 which have horrible screen tearing and jaggies, your eyes adjust and you get use to it.

Screen tearing is when the game doesn't finish rendering on frame before starting the next, resulting in frames that look like this: