GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 738 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1100 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 65/55 nm design. It features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 7040 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be quite a bit (more or less 92%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22608 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be just a bit (approximately 15%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1548 (15%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus 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 higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.