GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 680, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this specific card. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Geforce GTX 680, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121856 (173%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 173%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81536 (173%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20384 (173%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.